

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 


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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 


































































































































































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MRS. REBECCA HARDING DAVIS 

AUTHOR OF “ WAITING FOR THE VERDICT,” ETC, 


Ll/vy l ED 


^ Br^oadWay, NlV/or 


,rk, U. Y., as Second Class Matter. 


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TO ALL READERS. 

Very little can be 
done to improve the 
eurroundings of a woman 
who has not sense 
enough to use Sapolio. 
It is a simple but use- 
ful article. Perhaps 
you have heard of it a 
thousand times without 
using it once. If you 
will reverse the posi- 
tion and use it once 
you will praise it to 
others a thousand times. 
We have spent hundreds 
of thousands of dollars 
in convincing women that 
their labor can be mate- 
rially reduced by using 
Sapolio, but we have 
fallen short of our am- 
bition if we have failed 
to convince you. 


N ATASQUA 



m . - . 

















































NATASQUA 


BY y 

MRS. REBECCA HARDING DAVIS 

M 


Author of “ WAITING FOR THE VERDICT,” KITTY’S CHOICE,” 
“ DALLAS GALBRAITH,” JOHN ANDREWS,” ETC., ETC. 




CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited 

739 & 741 Broadway, New York. 


Copyright, 

1886, 

By O. M. DUNHAM. 



Press of W. L. Mershon 8c Co., 
Rahway, N . J, 


NATASQUA. 


CHAPTER I. 

“That was twenty-five years ago, Dick. 
But there was a secret in that story of your 
birth that I ken’t puzzle out yet.” 

Richard gave the boat an impatient jibe. 
“ Let’s call it a disgrace, and be done with 
it,” he said, in his abrupt, dogmatic tone. 
“ A man’s a fool that has any mysteries in 
his life nowadays. Like a cheap play ! ” 

Old Inskip pulled up the center-board un- 
certainly, and let it down again. His fingers, 
with the rest of his spare old body, had hes- 
itated and deliberated all through his tardy 
life. “ Luff, Dick ! I think I’d like to say a 
word or two to you before we land.” 

Richard nodded, and steered the boat out 


8 


NATASQUA . 


into the channel. He went on for a while, 
calculating silently how many oysters would 
be needed for planting next week, and then, 
glancing at the old man’s anxious face, his 
eyes began to twinkle. Usually he left his 
old comrade the two or three hours he re- 
quired for the incubation of an idea ; but 
this subject had galled the good-natured 
young fellow a little, and had better, he 
thought, be put out of the way at once. 

“ There’s no use of trying to put the word 
or two so that it won’t hurt me, sir. That 
old story don’t matter to me a whit ; not the 
weight of a straw. When I was a romantic 
cub of fifteen I used rather to hug myself 
on the idea of being a foundling. But I’ve 
no time for such follies now. I’ve never felt 
the need of a father or mother.” 

Inskip rubbed his hairy legs with the palms 
of his hands. “Haven’t you, Dick?” he 
hesitated, looking at the other shore. 


NATASQUA. 


9 


“ God knows I haven’t, sir ! ” heartily. 
Dick clapped his big hand on the other 
man’s shoulder, shaking every bone in his 
body. “ There’s not a young fellow on the 
coast whose father and mother have done 
for him what you have done for me. You 
know that. Now let’s be done with that 
old matter. As for a father and mother 
that I never saw, they are not of so much 
importance to me as — as this boat here. 
H ow could they be ?” 

Inskip looked at him doubtfully as Dick 
began to whistle, interrupting himself pres- 
ently with — “ What did De Conce offer for 
the oysters ?” 

‘‘Two, or two-twenty.” 

The boat pushed along, muddying and cut- 
ting the fungus-like growth of seaweeds be- 
neath. Boat or horse must go like steam ex- 
press under Richard’s guidance. He would 
have gone post-haste over the Styx, good- 


10 


NATASQUA. 


naturedly inventing a better tiller for Charon 
as he went, and giving him gratuitous hints in 
navigation. Inskip, according to his custom, 
sat watching him, looking, in his bare legs 
and arms, and leathery shirt and trowsers, 
like a bony continuation of the wooden bow. 
Nothing could be so manly in his eyes as the 
boy’s broad, bluff figure and decisive face, 
yet a vague doubt hung hazy in his brain of 
shallowness. Shallowness. Were oyster- 
beds, and New York trade, and the boat, 
the real things after all ? To the old fisher- 
man, who had never had wife or child, the 
dim ghosts of this father and mother; the 
mysterious untold story of birth and death ; 
the inexplicable sweet danger of love some 
day coming to Dick, were the actual mat- 
ters of life. Though, if you were to talk to 
Inskip for years, he would serve you with no 
better matter than plans for fishing, or thin, 
pointless stories borrowed entire from his 


Matasqua. 


ii 


grandfather, the sole contribution the Inskip 
family were likely to make to the world of 
thought. 

There was a necessity for him to speak 
to the point now, however, and at once, as 
they were pushing rapidly in-shore. 

“ I must go back to that old story once 
more, Richard.” 

“ Very well, sir. Will you haul in that 
sheet ? ” 

“ The woman who brought you here said 
your mother and father were dead. She 
did not tell even me more than that, 
though she knew I would take you when 
she died. Three years ago I had a letter, 
sending money. It was from your mother.” 

“ What did you do with it ?” sharply. 

“ I sent it back, Richard.” 

“ Right.” Dick began to whistle again, 
to keep his tongue still. He would not re- 
proach Inskip. But, with his propensity 


12 


NATASQUAi 


for managing other people’s affairs, it was 
hard on him that his own should have been 
taken out of his hands. He would have liked 
to deal with this woman who had entailed her 
guilt on him at birth, deserted him till now, 
and was coming thus late to shame him. 

“ There is something else, Richard. I 
had a letter from her the other day. It 
was not dated nor signed. It only said that 
your mother would be here this summer, 
and begged that you would not leave the 
beach.” 

Dick for a while silently pulled and wound 
his ropes. “If she comes, leave me to meet 
her,” he said at last, quietly. He did not ask 
to see the letter, but jumped on shore. “ I’ll 
go and settle that job with De Conce,” nod- 
ding good-by, pleasantly, as he walked off. 
This business of his mother he had also set- 
tled and set aside. Inskip looked after him 
with a queer, quizzical smile. Were love and 


NATASQUA. 


13 


passion, remorse, death itself, jobs which 
Dick could attack with his shrewd eyes, and 
hat cocked on one side — sort, label, and clap 
on the shelf as finished ? The old man could 
not put his thoughts into words, even to him- 
self, but he remembered vaguely a carpenter 
he had seen once finishing off a lot of coffins, 
dismissing each with a nod of satisfaction. 
He loosened the sail and drifted out into the 
current, while Dick’s stout, swinging figure, 
in its sack and trowsers of brown tweed, 
and jaunty cap atop, went steadily across 
the marsh, in sharp relief against the far 
horizon. It seemed to have absorbed into 
itself all the energy of the hot, sleeping 
landscape. 

The Natasqua hardly deserves to be called 
a river. It is one of those openings into our 
rocky coast through which the sea stretches 
its groping fingers on the hills, and lays upon 
them the spell of its own loneliness and quiet. 


Matasqua. 


*4 

Inskip floated along the banks of red clay 
which edged the water ; the wind hardly 
stirred the bit of blue tape hanging down 
from his hat ; the fields of feathery wild car- 
rot belting the shore glared white in the 
afternoon sun ; the brownish ledges of hills 
rose, tier beyond tier, shutting him in from a 
world of which he never had known any 
thing, and the water, tea-colored on the sur- 
face, and cold and brackish on the hottest 
day, sank in somber, impenetrable depths 
beneath him. It was one of those out-of-the- 
way corners of the world where nature 
seems to carry on her secret, silent processes 
of healing and of birth ; where we dimly 
know that, if our souls were cleaner and eyes 
clearer, we might come some day suddenly 
upon the great mother, unawares, at her 
eternal renewing work. 

“ It’s curious,” thought Inskip, “that the 
boy kin think of tradin’ in oysters here.” 


NATASQUA. 


15 


Dick, being an educated man, could have 
put the peculiar meaning of the place into 
better words — if he had ever seen it. But 
he never had. Inskip paddled along, think- 
ing, if Dick’s mother could meet him here, 
all would go well between them : her sin 
would somehow fall off from her ; the boy’s 
heart would go out to her full of love and 
forgiveness. The place was awful in its in- 
expressible beauty and quiet ; he felt vaguely 
that human souls in it lay bare and naked 
before God. The old fellow, who was 
chosen by the men thereabouts to settle 
their disputes, because of his dry, shrewd 
sense, was full of a lax, pitiful tenderness for 
all women-folks, for which the sharp-nosed, 
contented fishermen’s wives seldom made 
call upon him. He had fallen into the habit, 
therefore, for years, of prosing to himself 
about this unknown mother of Dick's, and 
lavishing it upon her, set apart, as she was, 


i6 


NATASQUA . 


from others, by a great crime and a great 
punishment. 

Dick, jumping over the fences of the 
marsh, looked at the affair in a different 
light. It was not an uncommon thing, he 
knew, out in the world, for a certain class of 
children to be put out of the way ; he might 
be thankful that he had not been disposed of 
in a more summary fashion. And Master 
Dick was quite aware of the loss to the world 
if he had been choked off prematurely in his 
cradle. He had not done badly with his life 
so far, beginning as the charity child of a 
poor crab-fisher ; what with a turn as peddler, 
photographer, school and books at every 
moment that could be spared from work — 
and now his oyster and clam farms, in which 
he had at last become master and director. 

“ The land belongs to the man with 
money,” he had told Inskip, “ but the water 
to the man with wit to use it,” 


NA TASQUA. 


17 


Dick’s course brought him to the river 
again, which made a sudden turn, as sharp 
as a V. The sun was down by this time. 
The cedars, gray with their gummy berries, 
began to gloom in the cool shadows. There 
was a bar of rippling, golden light across 
the water. On the yellow sands a woman 
was picking up kelp. Dick went up to her. 

“ It dries into different shades of brown, 
they tell me,” said she, by way of good- 
evening. 

“ Very likely. I don’t know. It makes 
poor manure. Though I have an idea,” 
kicking it critically, “ if the essence was ex- 
tracted, as they do with moss-bunkers — ” 
Dick stopped with an awkward laugh. For 
the first time in his life, perhaps, it occurred 
to him that the wisdom and information 
with which he was brimful was overflowing 
inopportunely, though the girl’s soft eyes 
were fixed on him attentively. 


i8 


NATASQUA. 


“What does she know of moss-bunkers or 
manure either ? ” sitting down to watch her. 
The dark water behind her slowly kindled 
into a sheet of pale color — subdued pink and 
violet ; a blue heron swooped down black 
and sharp over the glassy surface, and was 
gone ; the locusts droned on in an unknown 
tongue their song of sleep and summer. 
Her walk up and down the beach was leis- 
urely and drowsy ; the soft brown bathing- 
dress clung to her rounded limbs ; there was 
an edge of scarlet about her full white throat 
and uncoiled hair ; now and then she held 
up a weed or shell, asking him to praise it 
with her smiling, appealing eyes. The 
woman and all that she owned were made 
to be praised and petted, Dick thought, 
with a novel compassionate swelling at his 
heart, which he had never given before to 
any helpless baby. The opaline water, the 
heaps of ash-colored kelp, the unseen wail-. 


NATASQUA. 


*9 


ing sea, were only manure and fishing- 
ground to Dick ; but the sense of beauty, 
the new feeling of rest akin to pain which 
came to old Inskip through them, had 
reached this full-blooded, dogmatic young 
fellow through the girl, for the first time in 
his life. Dick’s life threatened to be a 
stifling chamber of trade and barter ; but 
there would be one crack at least through 
which the light could creep that lay in broad, 
unpriced sunshine about some other men. 

Dick was ready enough in dealing with 
men ; he had a simple, downright habit of 
knowing his rights, and taking them, which 
blunted the sharpest New York traders ; 
but of women and society he knew no more 
than he did of babies ; looked, indeed, upon 
them as denizens of an overgrown nursery. 
He did not notice that the dress which 
clung to this woman was of delicate make 
and stuff, as high-bred and aesthetic in its 


20 


NATASQUA. 


way as a fine picture. He knew that she 
was one of the city people who came down 
for a whim to tent on the beach. Two or 
three days before he had found her too far 
out in Inskip’s boat, trying to crab, and had 
waded out and pulled her to shore, explain- 
ing her mistake as they went. “ I am Rich- 
ard Dort,” he said, as he climbed up, drip- 
ping, on the bank to help her out. 

She looked at him. She had been going 
to thank him, but she only said instead, “ I 
am Romaine Vaux,” and went on to the 
tent. Miss Vaux’s eyes looked at everybody 
with the same babyish, soft appeal ; but the 
peculiarity about them was that you could 
not shake them off when she was gone. 
They stayed with Dick oddly ; he fancied 
them steady and searching ; weighing, label- 
ing him at his value. Richard had met her 
once or twice since, and they had talked of 
the fishing and marl. 


NATASQUA. 


21 


It was growing dark when she tied her 
kelp into a bundle ; the jelly-fish, in lumin- 
ous blobs, rose here and there in the sheet 
of dark water, kernels of soft white fire. “ I 
must go home,” she said. 

It seemed quite natural to Richard to 
walk beside her, and he did it naturally, as 
few city-bred men would have the art to do. 
To be sure, she was not like the raw-boned 
women he knew, in their sleazy pink cali- 
coes, but as for any difference of rank 
between her and them — it never occurred to 
him that there was any. He was a man, and 
they were women ; that was all there was 
about it. 

They came in sight of the tents. Natas- 
qua beach was the fashion that summer in 
the New York set to which the Vauxes 
belonged. There was a gay little camp on 
the sands, beside a cottage in which boarders 
were taken. 


22 


NATASQUA. 


“ That is my father’s — Major Vaux’s — 
tent, beside which the fire is burning.” 

“ I will give the colonel some hints, then, 
about building his fire to leeward,” said 
Dick. Miss Vaux smiled and nodded to the 
strollers they met, who glanced furtively 
at the young crab-fisher beside her, with his 
bare feet and cool, good-humored swagger. 
Dick, meanwhile, was wondering if his 
mother was among any of these groups. 
She was most probably a servant or house- 
keeper, whom some of the city people had 
brought down. What if she were to come 
out and proclaim the shame of his birth 
before Romaine ? He had not felt before 
how the girl had embodied to him all there 
was of chasteness and modesty in the world. 

“ I think I will go back,” he said, stop- 
ping short, a fierce throb at his heart. 

“ I want you to go on with me,” with an 
amused twist in her babyish mouth. She 


NATASQUA. 


23 


had told her stepmother that very after- 
noon about Dick. She told her everything ; 
colored, altered, lied a little sometimes, to 
amuse the meager, anxious little woman, 
who found it such hard work for her tired 
legs to keep step with that corps of heavy 
dragoons — Major Vaux and his four sons. 

“ The crab-fisher, after he had dragged 
me to land, told me his name quite as if we 
had been equals,” she had said ; “ and I 
began to think we were.” 

“You ought to be careful, Romy,” piped 
Mrs. Vaux. “ Your dear father might not 
like such an acquaintance. He could not 
possibly make any use of a man like that. 
Could he?” 

Romy made no answer. She held her 
stepmother’s hand between her own plump 
pink palms, stroking it. The thin, blue- 
nailed fingers were loaded • with showy 
rings. Mrs. Vaux, who would have been 


24 


NATASQUA. 


draped in drab if she had her way, wore an 
inexplicable clothing of scarlet and green, 
flying fringes, tassels, and Arab mantle, 
wisps of false hair hanging disheveled, 
according to the highest art of the coiffeur, 
about her lean, rasped face. 

“ Do ybu like this costume, Romy ?” she 
said, anxiously. “ It was one of those your 
dear father designed himself, and ordered 
from Storm. He said the colors would suit 
the clear sky to-day.” 

“ Nothing in it is so becoming as your 
wearing it, mother,” she said gently. “ How 
was Storm paid, by-the-by ? ” 

“In puffs, my dear. Oh, very well paid, 
of course!” eagerly. “You did not think 
your father was still in debt to him ? He 
wrote a copy of verses for the Family 
Journal on Storm’s show-rooms, and em- 
bodied descriptions of two of my costumes 
in letters from Long Branch and Newport. 


NATASQUA. 


25 


Oh, he was amply remunerated ! You would 
not allow your father to design one dress 
for you ? ” 

“ I did not need any,” dryly. “ But to 
return to my crab-fisher,” with a sudden 
gayety that seemed a little forced. 

“Here is your father coming!” with a 
breathless pass of her hand over flounces 
and wisps of hair. “ I must tell him the 
circumstance, Romy. It is intolerable to 
him if we do not place confidence in him.” 
Romy, who dared not send a pair of stock- 
ings to the laundress without the gallant 
majors knowledge, nodded. A large, florid 
man with English side-whiskers advanced 
with a military step up the beach. 

“ Major,” fluttered Mrs. Vaux, “ Romy 
tells me — ” 

“My love! one moment!” with a bland 
wave of the hand. “If you wpuld say, * My 
dear major ! ’ We are now among strangers, 


26 


NATASQUA. 


in the very eye of the public, as I might 
say. Our private life is liable to be com- 
mented on by reporters and correspondents 
at any moment. Why not make its beauty 
apparent, then ?” 

“ Oh yes, certainly, dear major. I was 
going to say — ” 

“Of your affection I have no doubt.” 
The major’s trombone voice was in full 
wind now, and rolled in triumph up and 
down. “ Why should it not, then, be mani- 
fest to others ? ‘ Love is a creature of such 

heavenly birth ’ — you doubtless recall the 
remainder of the quotation. You were 
about to remark, my dear wife ? ” 

Mrs. Vaux always spoke to her husband 
in a shrill, frightened falsetto, which was 
timed now to high-pressure speed by his 
rebuke. She managed to jerk out the story 
of Romy’s adventure in half a dozen incom- 
plete sentences. “ I was afraid the young 


NATASQUA. 


27 


man might presume on it to call,” she 
ended lamely. 

“ I shall be heartily glad to see him. 
Heartily ! ” and from his puffy white hands 
and broad expanse of purple waistcoat to 
his bloated rolling voice, he was the very 
impersonation of oppressive hospitality. 
“ Let us come in contact with the people — 
the very dregs of the people, if you choose, 
as in this case. You never have under- 
stood my principle, my love. I am glad 
that Romaine does, and is willing to join 
with her brothers and myself, at last. The 
more we come in contact with the people, 
the better for ourselves and our business. 
Socially, our position is impregnable. 
Vaux & Sons, who command the advertising 
patronage of one hundred daily journals, 
can afford to meet any social Pariah. We 
hold the public by the ear, as it were, like 
an overgrown donkey, and lead it where we 


28 


NATASQUA A 


will. Our rank is higher than money, 
Frances. We are of the blood-royal of 
intellect.” 

“Yes, Fm sure I understand, major.” 

The major could not bear interruption in 
an oration. “ I am very sure that you don’t,” 
testily. “ I would embrace in charity, as it 
were, all human beings. There is no know- 
ing which of them may need a newspaper. 
We can go out to meet this crab-fisher, for 
instance ; not, of course, as an intelligent 
being, such as Judge Parker, who can push 
us as vehicles for Government advertising, or 
any of our Congressional friends. But the 
inferior orders of God’s creatures also 
were made to be of use. The sheep gives 
us wool, the cow beef, and this young 
man — ” 

“ May give an advertisement,” added his 
daughter. 

“ Precisely,” turning his glaring topaz ring 


NATASQUA. 


2 9 


leisurely in the sun. “ What’s o’clock, Ro- 
maine ? ” 

Now Mrs. Vaux knew by instinct that the 
aristocratic major already rebelled against 
longer companionship in his thoughts with 
this fishy inferior, and made divers grimaces 
to warn Romy of the peril she was in. But 
the girl stumbled on for want of something 
to say. 

“ One peculiarity about him I did not tell 
you, mother — his name.” 

“ I do not perceive, my daughter,” he 
interrupted, “ how the name of persons of 
this class can concern us. If they advertise 
— well. But their names or habits are mat- 
ters into which I should no more be tempted 
to examine than those of the slugs or these 
very unpleasant beetles who torment us at 
night.” 

“ But the name was peculiar,” persisted 
Romy. “ I never knew any family of the 


3 ° 


NATASQUA . 


same, mother, but yours. You, at least, 
ought to be civil to the man.” 

Was it the cold sea mist, or fear of her 
husband, that gave the meek little woman’s 
rouged face that sudden chilled look ? Her 
voice, too, had lost its ordinary scared 
quaver, and sounded unnaturally quiet and 
controlled. 

“ What is his name ? ” 

“ Dort — your own. Richard Dort.” 

“ It is very improbable,” blustered the 
major, angrily. “ Your stepmother’s unu- 
sual name bears inherent evidence to the 
good blood and breeding of her family. 
If this fellow has it he has stolen it, that’s 
all.” 

While the major fumed and clucked 
about, his wife got up and went up the 
beach. He scowled after her through his 
eye-glasses. In town she dared not violate 
his rules by going off the two squares’ 


NATASQUA. 


3 * 


aristocratic beat. But his face relaxed as 
he watched her fluttering figure zig-zagging 
over the sands. “ Your mother is fond of 
solitary walks here in the country. They 
are hardly en regie. But the world may 
ascribe them to a love of nature. And if 
it does not — let her have her own way ! ” 
with a gulp. “ Curse the world ! Are we 
to be tied neck and heels by it ?” 

Late as it was when his daughter brought 
Dort that evening, Mrs. Vaux had not yet 
returned. The major marched pompously 
up and down, watching the manufacture of 
some oyster rissoles in the fire by the black 
cook. He wore an amazing seaside cos- 
tume of his own devising, part sailor and 
part brigand, unprecedentedly embroidered 
and baggy. He rolled in his walk as though 
on quarter-deck. 

The sight of him woke Dick with a shock 
out of a queer drowse into which he had 


32 


NATASQUA. 


fallen. The twilight, the lapping water, 
the soft steps pit-a-pat with his own, the 
contact, light as a breath, with a womanly 
form beside him, had touched him as so 
many magnetic fingers, bringing him like 
the clairvoyant into a new world of both 
facts and fancies. 

A wife ? Of course he must marry. And 
this — this was the first woman he had ever 
known. As for the fish-girls of the coast, 
he saw now how strong an infusion of the 
man and animal there was in them. Look- 
ing at Romy, with his dominant masculine 
eye, he counted her as won. Dick had do- 
mestic instincts, a big affectionate nature, 
and usually — his own way. He was shrewd 
enough to see that, in the gross, his educa- 
tion was better than the girl’s. What 
obstacles could there be in the way ? Why 
not marry her as soon as he had money 
enough ? 


NATASQUA. 


33 


Clearly, Dick knew the world no better 
than any other young cub with its eyes not 
yet fully opened. 

If he felt for a moment that there was 
nobody in the world than he, the man, and 
she, the woman, the portly apparition of 
Major Vaux promptly disabused him of the 
idea. 

“ My father, Mr. Dort — Major Vaux.” 

The majors prompt, effusive greeting was 
a novel experience to Richard. To a well- 
bred man it would have been overglossed 
and stagey ; Dick, it bewildered and 
daunted. In a moment he found himself 
whisked into the tent and before a beaufet 
covered with liquors. There was a glitter 
of silver presentation-cups with flattering 
inscriptions ; there was exquisitely shaped 
glass ; there were wines, crimson, amber, 
purple, of whose names even Dick had 
never heard. 


34 


NATASQUA. 


“ Dry or wet, Mr. Dort? Indifferent, eh ? 
Adolph, a hock-glass ! You see us in the 
rough, sir, in the rough ! We find it good 
once in the year to loose ourselves from the 
trammels of state and fashion and throw our- 
selves upon the bosom of mother nature. 
Hence our tent, our couch of skins, our bar- 
baric cookery.” 

Dick held the gold-edged glass to his lips, 
his keen eyes glancing over it. If this was 
their barbaric life, what kind of world did 
these people have about them in town ? It 
was as far removed from poor Dick as A1 
Raschid’s palace, and the major’s urbanity 
drove that bitter truth home on him with 
every bow and grimace. Shrewd Dick felt, 
too, that they would not have dragged an 
equal in to drink at the first moment of 
acquaintance. It was to an animal or infe- 
riors they would offer the hospitality of 
victuals instead of ideas. 


NATASQUA. 


35 


A gentleman from another tent, a Mr. 
Langton, strolled over, and Dick had leisure 
to compare his own treatment with that of 
this stranger, who belonged to their own 
caste and culture. The major probed Dicks 
specialties of knowledge, oyster-planting and 
the like ; applied his pump, and speedily 
drained him dry. He got material enough 
in half an hour to work up into one maga- 
zine article and two leaders. 

“ When you are sufficiently prepared to 
bring your business formally into notice, I 
will do what I can for you, young man,” he 
said, summing up the matter and, in effect, 
dismissing him. “Vaux & Sons are the 
great advertising agents for the east. They 
command three hundred daily journals. We 
hold the public by the ear, Mr. Langton,” 
with a puffy laugh, “ as it were an overgrown 
donkey, and lead it where we will.” 

“ And you ride the beast hard, Vaux ! ” 


36 


NATASQUA. 


“ Ah ! now you do me too much credit ! 
But I tell you,” putting the topaz-ringed fin- 
ger confidentially on the other man’s breast 
— “ I tell you — Romaine, my child, explain 
to Mr. Dort the machinery of Adoph’s cui- 
sine. You may find some useful hints there 
for your life in the swamps, sir. I was going 
to remark, Langton, as soon as we were rid 
of the young man, that there’s no beast so 
profitable as the public, and no way of draw- 
ing the best juices from it like that of the 
newspaper. Make up your mind to put your 
capital in with ours, sir, and try it. What do 
I want?” falling into oratorical swing. “A 
house on the Hudson ? A place in the 
Customs for my son ? A coat ? Jewelry for 
Madam Vaux? I apply my fingers to the 
beast, in the shape of a puff, and it gives me 
the best it has ; forces it on me ! Why, sir, 
my cellars are filled with wines such as 
Stewart could not buy. I have eight pict- 


NATASQUA. 


37 


ures of Mrs, Vaux in my drawing-room, by 
the best artists. I have her as a peasant, 
St. Cecilia, Andromeda chained to the rock, 
and four other appropriate conceptions. I 
felt it my duty to art to preserve her face 
before it faded.” There was an odd touch 
of natural feeling in his tone, just here. 

“You have no portrait of your daugh- 
ter ? ” asked Langton, who had been one of 
that young lady’s suitors. 

“ Of Romaine ?” indifferently. “ No. She 
is a good girl. Sound sense, sir, sound. 
But as to beauty, compared to Mrs. Vaux ! 
— However, the child is well enough.” It 
occurred to him suddenly that now was a 
good opportunity to give Langton his quie- 
tus. With all his money he was no match 
for Miss Vaux. “ Yes, Romy is well enough. 
With my power in the press I can open cir- 
cles to her where she will make a brilliant 
marriage. One match commanding politi- 


38 


NATASQUA. 


cal power is now in my eye. So it goes, sir. 
The newspaper rules in trifles or matters of 
life and death. One hour it overthrows a 
dynasty, the next I go into the best French 
barber’s in New York, and say, ' I am Vaux 
of the press,’ and he leaves me,” — with tri- 
umphant gesture over his dyed hair and 
mustache — “ a work of art ! And does not 
charge a penny ! ” 

There was a pause in which Langton, a 
clever man of the world, managed to put 
his chagrin out of sight. “ Where is Miss 
Vaux ? ” 

“ In her tent. She has shaken off the 
crab-man, I see,” looking through his eye- 
glass at Dick, shirking off with his head 
down, across the sands. 

“ Romaine has certain democratic pro- 
clivities which make her the fittest member 
of the family to deal with that class. We 
leave them to her.” 


NA TASQUA. 


39 


An hour or two later, Adolph’s miracles 
of art were placed on the round table under 
the tent. One or two tiger-skins formed 
a carpet ; Mrs. Vaux wore another costume 
yet more redolent than the last of the sea ; 
the major and his four sons were in strict 
sailor rig ; the major himself had fastened 
a white gull’s wing in Romy’s jetty hair. 
“ We celebrate our repose upon the bosom 
of mother nature by such trifling rites as 
these,” he told each of the three congress- 
men who were bidden to dinner, in turn, as 
they arrived. The major often made a 
successful point in his life-long game of 
euchre by picturesque dinners, aided by his 
inimitable wines. He described Dick, his 
capability and conceit, with a few keen 
touches. 

“ One is astounded at the amount 
of power running to waste in the lower 
orders of men and animals,” nodding philo- 


40 . 


NATASQUA. 


sophically. “You did not see the young 
man, my dear ? ” 

Mrs. Vaux was brushing a moth away 
from her plate, and did not answer directly. 
“ I met him on the sands,” she said. “ He 
did not know me.” 

The major’s face heated angrily. “ If 
you had been here he would not have known 
you, my dear. The children and I may 
amuse ourselves with such persons, but 
they never are allowed to annoy you by 
contact.” The children, Romy included, 
belonged to the major’s early days of poverty 
and obscurity. But the meek, scared little 
woman, the last of the Dorts, whom he had 
married late in life, was as a grand lama 
to him. She was the cap and crown of his 
social success ; she embodied all his claims 
on gentility and fashion. Besides, he had, 
in the mite of a heart hidden somewhere 
under the purple waistcoat and yellow seals 


NATASQUA. 


4 1 


and paunchy breast, a queer, aching fond- 
ness for the woman, as a woman. He did 
his best now to show her off before Mr. 
Coles (then the secretary of the interior), 
who was their guest for the first time. 
When, at long intervals, she chirped out 
some small platitude, he looked round trium- 
phantly, inwardly delighted, as though it 
were an epigram of the purest water. He 
noted her uneven breathing, and the deep 
daubs of rouge on her cheek-bones, and 
signified anxiously, by grimaces and nods 
to Romy, that one of her mothers head- 
aches was coming on. When she fell into 
absolute silence he quoted her, supplying 
her with emotions, wit, and logic ad libi- 
tum. 

“ Four fine boys, did you say, Mr. Coles ? ” 
with a sweep of his hand to the young men. 
“ Not bad, sir ; not bad ! Mrs. Vaux over- 
rates them, however. She must have them 


42 


NATASQVA. 


all about her in the home-nest. She gives 
them little significant names when we are 
alone. This cub, Newcastle (dramatic critic 
on the Age), is her Bayard ; John, to your 
right (local on the Standard ), is her Philip 
Sidney ; George, who does the religious re- 
porting for several of the New York papers, 
she calls Melancthon ; and Porter — ” The 
major drained his glass, his invention sud- 
denly collapsing. “ Porter’s sobriquet I 
have forgotten. He is my secretary in the 
advertising business. But it instances a 
mother’s folly, Mr. Coles. We know the 
weaknesses of a mother’s heart.” 

“ Not a mother in reality ? ” said Mr. Coles, 
politely. “ I need but look in Mrs. Vaux’s 
youthful face to know these stalwart fellows 
are only yours by adoption, madam.” 

“ Only by adoption,” she said, smiling 
faintly. 

“ You have none of your own?” 


NATASQUA . 


43 


Mrs. Vaux was raising a glass of wine to 
her mouth as he spoke. She held it there 
a moment untasted, and set it down again. 

“ No. I have no child,” she said. 

Mr. Coles was in the middle of one of his 
best anecdotes a minute later (and all the 
world knows what a famous story-teller he 
was), when the major cried out shrilly : 
“What is it, Frances? Romaine, your 
mother ! ” 

But Romy had her arm about her mother 
before he spoke to her. “No, she is npt 
dying” — to the frightened men. “Her 
head troubles her at times. We will take 
her outside.” 

They carried the meager figure out, and 
laid her on the sands. The brilliant wax- 
lights within the door of the tent flamed 
down on the frosted silver and red wine, 
and the gay tiger-robes. Outside a horned, 
spectral moon hung low over the waste of 


44 


NATASQUA . 


black water and the stretch of gray beach 
disappearing in the night on either side. 
Far off in the marshes, where the night was, 
a man walked, watching, as he went, the red 
beam of light streaming out from the tent, 
and the ghost-like figures moving about it. 
His feet sank deep in the mud; an army of 
moths and grasshoppers rose from the sedge 
before him ; the gnats stung him furiously. 
These people belonged to a world of ease 
and refinement and culture, of whose exist- 
ence he had never even heard until to-night. 
The gulf between him and them was broad 
as that which lay between Dives and Laza- 
rus. He saw that clearly now. 


CHAPTER II. 


Mr. Langton kept an observant eye on 
Miss Vaux's comings-in and goings-out. 
He soon discovered that the young crab- 
fisher was oddly associated with them. If 
she was belated in her solitary explorations 
among the cranberry bogs, Dort was sure 
to discover her and bring her home ; if she 
ventured too far out in her boat, it was 
Dort’s seines she ran into, and he paddled 
her to shore out of self-defense ; when she 
came back from the hills, it was Dort who 
followed behind, a beast of burden loaded 
with lichen or moss. 

Langton, being one of those men who 
dribble out every fear or fancy to the first 
passer-by, ran with the matter to Coles. 
“There's an attachment there,” he cried, 


46 


NATASQUA. 


“ take my word for it. There’s an attach- 
ment. The romance of the thing — solitary 
— hills — sea ! These chance meetings have 
bewildered her.” 

“Nonsense! Why, I know that young 
lady, Langton ; she is a lady. There is not 
a drop of her blood that belongs to the 
Vaux breed. She is delicate and refined 
beyond most women. And this fellow is a 
vulgar crab-man, I think you told me ? Red 
shirt — bare legs — toes for clams, eh?” 

“ N-no.” Langton hesitated thoughtfully. 
“ He has a certain amount of culture ; a 
heterogeneous mass of book-learning, with 
utter ignorance of society. I can under- 
stand the attraction the fellow has for her. 
There is a genial, downright straightfor- 
wardness in his manner that had an odd 
charm in it even to me, and Romaine Vaux 
has lived on sham and varnish until one 
would think her soul loathed it.” 


NATASQUA. 


47 


Coles laughed. “ That’s true. The ma- 
jor is certainly the cursedest — but sharp 
as a steel trap under all his weakness. He 
would have smelled the rat in the arras in 
this affair, if there were any there. He 
keeps a keen watch on Romaine. She is 
his right bower. He means to play her 
some day, and win.” 

“ I know it. But that very idea blinds 
him. He talks of Dort as a sort of hireling 
whom Miss Vaux employs. ‘I hope you 
remunerate the man for rowing you about,’ 
he said to-day. ‘ Bring him up and I’ll 
give him a bottle or so of ale, if you don’t 
care to spare money. These water-rats 
’long shore drink like fish,’ he added, turn- 
ing to me. No. He sees nothing.” 

“ There’s nothing to see. It’s all your 
jealousy, Langton. Miss Vaux is a pure, 
sweet girl — a good deal too clear-sighted to 
throw herself into the gutter in that fashion.” 


4 8 


NATASQUA . 


Mr. Coles strolled away, and Langton 
turned toward the Vaux tent. '‘Sweet ?” 
Oh ! there was no doubt of her amiability, 
poor Langton thought bitterly. It hid her, 
and kept unwelcome intruders off from her 
as effectually as would plate armor. But 
what the deuce was she thinking of under the 
sweetness? “There she is,” he muttered, 
“ just the same, with her pleasant laugh 
and gentle, soft glances, whether she refuses 
to marry me, or sits listening to the major 
toadying one man and bragging to the 
next. By George ! what gall and worm- 
wood that must be for the girl to drink ! I 
don’t wonder she is ready to fling herself to 
the first honest crab-fisher that comes along, 
to be rid of it.” 

He was resolved to move in the matter 
at once — but how? A word to old Vaux 
would be effectual, but Langton was loth 
to put the girl in her father’s power ; he had 


ATATASQUA . 


49 


a fancy that with all the majors purring 
softness he had tigerish claws. “ He has 
no affection for any thing under God’s 
heaven but his wife,” he thought. Mrs. 
Vaux ? Hillo ! There was a chance ! Lang- 
ton quickened his steps to the tent. The 
woman has common sense, he thought ; he 
could appeal to her without risk. 

Mrs. Vaux was sitting on a pile of the 
tiger-skins at the door of the tent when he 
came up ; netting, as usual, with breathless 
eagerness at some gaudy enormity of zephyr 
and beads. She manufactured such quanti- 
ties of these pouches and caps, that the 
steel needles seemed to have grown a part 
of her fingers. The money she made (for 
they were sold secretly) the major depos- 
ited in bank for her, and refused to touch, 
no matter how close to starvation they were 
pushed sometimes. “ It is your mother’s 
little secret,” he would say gently to the 


NATASQUA. 


5 ° 

Vaux boys. “ Let her keep it. Some deed 
of holy charity, doubtless.” 

She looked up smiling when Langton 
approached. When the major was out of 
sight, the scared little woman had a certain 
timid dignity of her own, very winning and 
pleasant. 

He took a seat on the skins at her feet. 
“ I came to speak to you in reference to 
Miss Vaux, madam.” 

Mrs. Vaux bowed and straightened her 
thoughts and her thread, with a sly, amused 
glance at the young man. If Romy’s lovers 
came for information from her, they would 
find she could fence and parry, and guard 
the child’s secrets as well as any man of 
them all. It was like the ghost of one of 
her own old love-affairs coming back. Her 
thin cheek grew red and her eye sparkled. 

“ You know this young man, Dort, doubt- 
less, Mrs. Vaux?” 


NATASQUA. 


5 1 

Mrs. Vaux turned sharply and looked at 
him. 

“Port? You came to talk to me of 
him ?” 

“ And of your daughter. The subjects 
are the same, unfortunately. Can you give 
me your attention for a moment ?” 

“ Dort, you said ? I have never seen 
him. I have been in the tent and heard 
his voice. But I have never looked at him. 
Never.” 

“You feared Major Vaux would dislike it, 
probably ? ” — gently, for the inexplicable 
agitation of the poor lady touched him. Was 
Vaux such a tyrant, that the mere thought of 
his annoyance could so shake the woman ? 
She had recovered herself, measurably, 
however, before she answered him. 

“ I have no fear of displeasing my hus- 
band. I have never wronged him knowingly 
— not in the least trifle,” with a steady coun- 


52 


NATASQUA . 


tenance, but for a queer quaver in her chin. 
“ Of what did you say you came to talk to 
me, Mr. Langton ?” 

“ I won’t detain you long. It is a matter 
in which I fear you will think I have no con- 
cern.” He drew closer to her, and lowered 
his voice. 


CHAPTER III. 


Mr. Langton had ended his conference. 
Mrs. Vaux sat for awhile on the tiger-skins, 
fingering the heaps of purple worsted and 
steel beads in her lap. The gaudy things 
had filled a miserable, pathetic part in her 
life. She was thinking about them rather 
than the story he told her. Since she was a 
pink-faced, coquettish little chit, it had been 
Fanny Dort’s habit to seize on the trifles 
of life, and keep as far as she could out of 
the great currents of love or passion and 
right or wrong. She got up and went 
down the beach in search of Romaine, try- 
ing to think of the turtles and frogs down 
in the sedge, or the blue dragon-flies flash- 
ing in the evening light over the black gul- 


54 


NATASQUA. 


lies she crossed. But, in spite of herself, 
she went back to that day — that one day 
which had put meaning and strength into 
her shallow life when she was a girl ; when 
from noon till dark her baby, her own baby, 
lay on her bosom. A single short half-day ! 
They took him away the next. But she fan- 
cied the fat little hand was fumbling now 
about her neck, and could feel the milk throb 
again in her withered breasts, on which a 
child had never lain since then. She went 
over it all. How, when they told her the 
boy was dead, as well as its father, she had 
gone, flirting and giddy, into the world she 
lived in now — fastened herself in. It was a 
world made up of the major, and cheap 
finery, and a footsore tagging after fashion- 
able people, and puffery, and perpetual brag. 
She, too, had learned to brag in her piping 
way ; and to gape at and imitate the habits 
of her betters, as the major called their 


NATASQUA. 


55 


richer neighbors. When the time came that 
she found her child still lived, she had noth- 
ing left her to do but to sit and chafe year 
after year at the intangible meshes which 
she had woven, that kept her from him — 
inflexible as chains of steel — and to net and 
crochet hideous finery to make money to 
send him. In the midst of her tawdry fash- 
ion and eternal pleasure-going, the soul of 
the weak little body dwelt alone and kept 
silence, as in darkness and the shadow of 
death. Other women held their children 
close to their lives ; dirty greenbacks were 
all that were left her with which to touch or 
reach hers. She stretched out her hands 
now over the wide beach with a cry. She 
had come there, not hoping she would have 
courage to claim him, but thinking she might 
look at him once, perhaps find his steps in 
the sand, and put her own feet in them. “ I 
must call those great Vaux men my sons,” 


NATASQUA. 


56 

she cried feebly, “ give them pet names ; 
and when my own boy stands without the 
tent, I dare not look at him ! ” 

She saw Romaine coming, and tried to be 
cool, and reason with herself what was best 
to be done. If Langton’s story was true, 
and Major Vaux should discover the hold 
Dort had upon his daughter, the whole truth 
must come out. 

“ He must be told that he is my son ! ” 
Mrs. Vaux stopped short. “ My son ! ” Her 
shriveled heart swelled for the moment to 
the measure of a true woman’s. Romy was 
very dear to her : all that was bright and 
real in life had belonged to the girl. “ My 
son and Romy, man and wife ! ” After all, 
there were such things as love and sincerity 
and actual happiness ! She had missed them, 
but here they were ! 

But the major ? How would she come to 
him with her shame ? And the Vaux boys ? 


NATASQUA. 


57 


And their set on Fifteenth Street ? How 
could the major tell them that his wife was a 
mother instead of a maid when he married 
her ? “ They would cut him at once ! And 
he’s been so long getting into society ! They 
might overlook it, though,” pausing hope- 
fully. “ There was that story of the Kart- 
rights was worse. But Richard is only a 
crab-fisher ! and Mr. Langton has seen him 
bare-legged ! ” She stopped again, pulling 
desperately at a wisp of false hair until it 
came out. Romy, coming up, laughed at 
her mother while she kissed her, and began 
to set her to rights. But the little woman 
was worn out with the life-long battle going 
on within her between love and sham : or, if 
you choose, God and the devil. 

The tears stood in her eyes. “ It’s that 
braid I got at Bury’s. He charged me fifty 
dollars, and it’s nothing but combings. But 
it’s not the hair ! ” she sobbed. “ It’s all 


NATASQUA . 


58 

alike ! I and all the rest of it — false and a 
cheat ! ” 

Romy put her strong arm about her 
mother, and walked gravely beside her until 
she stopped sobbing. 

“ Now, come on ! ” she said. The girl 
had a sudden idea. Her tanned cheek red- 
dened and her eyes blazed. They turned 
their backs on the uneasy tide and entered a 
pine forest. Their feet sank, noiseless and 
deep, in the brown needles ; the soft sunset 
light shone tranquilly through the aisles of 
gray trunks ; a spider swung drowsily across 
the path, the web gleaming like a red hair ; 
there were low bay bushes here and there, 
whose leaves, crushed under their feet, filled 
the air with a pungent, reviving scent ; dusty- 
winged moths flew lazily through the arch- 
ing, dusky-green roof overhead. 

“ It is as still and solemn as a church ! ” 
cried Mrs. Vaux. They came out of the forest 


NATASQUA . 


59 


presently into an apple orchard, in the mid- 
dle of which stood a large house built of logs, 
as gray and feathery with lichen as the 
living trees. There was no living thing in 
sight, but two or three cows staring gravely 
out of their inclosure. The sunshine here 
was broad and unimpeded ; so full of life, 
that a wisp of dull smoke from the chimney 
turned into a brilliant crimson cloud in it, and 
drifted over the sky ; the old trees in the 
orchard had that curious friendly, welcoming 
air which trees that generations of children 
have climbed always have ; now and then an 
over-ripe apple dropped with a thud upon the 
grass ; the house-door stood wide open, and 
inside a wood fire burned on a broad hearth. 
Romy led her mother in. 

“ It is an old fisherman who lives here with 
his son. I come to see him sometimes, 
when the son is away. He is a good friend 
of mine.” 


6o 


NATASQUA. 


“ But the door is open.” 

'‘They never shut it, I believe, day or 
night,” laughed Romy. She pulled a chair 
near the fire and placed her mother in it, so 
that she could look out of doors and yet be 
warmed. 

“ But it’s a very peculiar habit not to shut 
a door,” dribbled Mrs. Vaux. “ It must be 
a great relief to have the idea of burglars 
and pickpockets struck out of the world ; I 
spend so much time thinking of them.” 

Her clothes, which were damp, were dry- 
ing already ; a pleasant, drowsy warmth 
relaxed her lean body ; the fire leaped and 
crackled, and fell in soft gray ashes ; outside 
the sun shone. A row of purple hollyhocks 
edged the fence ; some chickens came peck- 
ing at the fallen red apples ; a sparrow 
hopped among them unmolested. The room 
was large, the walls stained a clear gray ; it 
was kept in that certain order dear to an old 


NA TASQUA. 


61 


maid or a skilled mechanic. There were 
crab-nets and lobster-pots and guns at one 
end, a dresser with dishes at the other, and 
a great book-case full of books. Mrs. Vaux 
could read their titles from where she sat. 
“ He must be a scholarly fisherman,” she 
said, 

They sat quietly for a long time. Pur- 
posely, Romy did not break the cheerful 
silence. Mrs. Vaux’s feeble, inconsequent 
brain received impressions as readily as a 
shallow pool of water which has no color of 
its own. Besides, she had been tired for 
many years ; this was a different rest from 
any she had ever known. 

“ This is a different life from ours. One 
is quite shut off from the world here,” she 
said. “ I suppose now, a woman who lived 
here would never know in all her life if 
skirts were worn bouffante or plain, and the 
men would never need to advertise or take 


62 


NATASQUA. 


a newspaper. Dear, dear ! ” — with a sigh of 
relief, “ the furniture is dreadfully out of 
date, Romy, but it’s very comfortable.” 

“ It’s all paid for,” said Romy, dryly ; 
and then, angry at her own acrid tone, she 
hurried on, talking to fill the silence. 
“There’s a great deal of hard work done 
here. But they live out of the woods and 
rivers, you understand. That is the way 
the great quiet comes. It’s a curious sensa- 
tion to take food which costs nothing, right 
from nature’s hand.” 

“ It must be, indeed ! no butchers’ bills — 
small tradesmen are so exacting ; and no 
advertising, as I said. But your old fisher- 
man is dreadfully rough, I suppose? Very 
unlike your father?” 

“ He is very unlike my father.” 

A quick, decisive step was heard crunch- 
ing the dry grass outside. “ Here he is,” 
said Romy. “ But no ! ” rising hastily with 


NATASQUA. 


63 


a blush of annoyance and pleasure, “ it is 
his son. I thought he was out of the way 
to-day.” 

The man came up whistling. There was 
a moment’s pause, in which Mrs. Vaux gave 
a rapid glance about the room, at the nets in 
the corner and the books ; then a terrified 
gleam of comprehension came into her face. 
She got up, steadying herself by the mantle- 
shelf, as he came nearer, calling to a dog 
that followed him. When she first heard 
his voice she turned, looking wildly from 
side to side for some chance to escape, and 
then she suddenly stood still. 

The boy she had lost twenty-five years 
ago was coming back to her. She held out 
her trembling hands. 

“What is the matter, mother?” said 
Romy quietly. “ It is only Richard Dort.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


Mrs. Vaux nodded. She meant to tell him 
now that he was her son. Whatever 
strength or mothers love there was in her, 
lifted her unreliable nature at that moment 
into unnatural heights of courage. But the 
moment was as terrible to her as though 
her shallow, fidgety soul had been unexpect- 
edly called to judgment before God. 

“ At any rate, I want to be alone,” she 
said irritably, pulling on and off her glove. 
“Go out, Romy, go out; I have something 
to say to — to this gentleman.” 

Romy went out, blushing. She thought, 
of course, she knew what her mother wanted 
to talk about. There was only one secret 
in the world for her at that time. 

There was only one for Dick. It put 


NATASQUA. 


65 


blood and life into every thing else. As he 
came up the path, he was thinking what a 
confoundedly raw, uncomfortable day it was, 
and how a bushel or two of mussel-shells 
would help that potato patch ; but when he 
saw the gray-cloaked figure in the porch, the 
air between him and it grew full of autumnal, 
golden lights ; he saw the green arch of 
trailing vines over her, crusted with purplish 
drops of grapes ; the roses along the path 
opened wide, blood-red, and pungent. 

“ You here ! I never found you here 
before. You — ” He had reached her with 
a bound and touched her hand. He always 
took her hand for an instant when they first 
met. The touch of it, white, warm, yielding, 
lingered on the mans rough paw until it 
came again, though that were for days. 

“ I came to see your father. I thought 
you were at the village.” 

“No matter. You are here.” 


66 


NATASQUA. 


She turned to look at the sky, the grapes, 
the pine-knots in the floor. Dicks eyes 
breathlessly followed hers — trembling, fugi- 
tive, conscious. No doubt, when this man 
and woman were babies of five years old 
they behaved with more reason and dignity ; 
but oh, how red were those roses ! how the 
grapes glimmered and shone ! how God 
poured life into the cold wind that after- 
noon ! 

“ I forgot,” she said at last, with a start, 
“my mother is in the house. She wishes to 
see you. I will walk down to the orchard 
until your talk with her is over.” 

Dick helped her over the stile and stood 
to watch her furtively as she walked away. 
“ If she cared for me she would give one 
look back,” he thought. He had fallen into 
this habit of spying upon the girl when 
unsuspected. He watched at the door of her 
heart perpetually, with a fierce hunger like 


NATA'SQUA. 


6 


a beast of prey, to seize on the secret of he 
love if it should creep out. He would have 
stolen it : there were times when he would ^ 
have liked to wrench it from her by force ; he 
could do any thing but say to her manfully, 

“ I love you,” and so put his own fate to the 
final test. Dort, who was naturally manly 
and straightforward, was neither manly nor 
straightforward in his love. The life-long 
swagger had been completely cowed out of 
him the other day, by a swagger that was 
bigger and falser than his own. The 
majors glitter and brag had paralyzed him, 
as with the spell of the evil eye. Fashion, 
after all, is your malign enchanter ; nothing 
lames or palsies a fresh, young nature like it. 

“ I’m glad,” thought Romy, “he is going 
to meet mother.” He would see that they 
were not all of them sham and varnish : the 
silly, affectionate little woman. would give 
him courage, no doubt. She might even 


68 NATASQUA. 


ome day be a mediator between Dort and 
" X aer father. Romy was sanguine, as you 
see. 

“ I’m glad,” thought Dort, knocking the 

. 

mud off his shoes on the steps, “ I am to 
meet her mother.” If she were the gentle, 
lovable creature that Romy had described, 
he could insure himself a chance through 
her. Between his love and the savage 
snubbings he had lately received, Dick’s 
heart had never found its way so near to 
the surface; he had never been so humbled, 
or so hungry for cordial sympathy or com- 
fort. If Mrs. Vaux had owned herself his 
mother at that moment, it is probable he 
would have eagerly accepted her as the one 
thing which his life needed. But to-mor- 
row was always Mrs. Vaux’s accepted time 
of salvation. 

6 Hearing his steps crunching the sand, she 
came toward the door to meet him. But 


NATASQUA. 69 

just then her eye fell on a square looking- 
glass on the wall, and she caught sight of 
her gaudy yellow and purple dress, fluffy 
hair, and the paste jewelry dangling from 
neck and ears. She drew back as if she had 
had a blow. 

u Why, what will he think of me ? I look 
like a soubrette at the Bowery,” she said 
aloud. “ No, I’ll not claim my son until I 
am decently dressed.” She stood in the 
middle of the room adjusting her collar, a 
cold sweat on her face, and a sudden, awful 
void in her heart 

Dort stepped up into the doorway. He 
was broad and loosely built ; his eyes gray, 
keen, and good-tempered, like his father’s. 
A bold, downright air, too, like his father’s. 
His father ? Oh, God ! Now, now she knew 
how she had loved that stupid, good-natured 
John Walt, who lived and died, long ago in 
a country doctor’s office. A country doc- 


70 NATASQUA. 

tor — but he seemed like a very god to her 
now, in the remembering. 

Dort crossed the room, smiling, his hand 
out. “ This is — I believe — ” 

“ Your — your — ” Her eye fell on the pur- 
ple skirt. “ I am Miss Vaux’s mother.” 

It was not the first time that a tag of 
ribbon or daub of rouge had come between 
a soul and its salvation. 

“ I’m very glad to see Miss Vaux’s 
mother under this roof,” said Dick, bustling 
about to find her a seat. What odd, plead- 
ing eyes she had ! There was certainly none 
of her husband’s pomp or circumstance 
about this little lady. 

“ You are glad to see me ? ” 

She sat down looking white and scared. 
Evidently, she knew less of the usages of 
society than Dick himself. As he was con- 
vinced of that he grew quite bold and con- 
fident thereupon. 


NATASQUA. 


71 


“ Yes, madam. Very glad to welcome 
you, Miss Vaux has told me so much of — ” 

“ Oh ! it is for Miss Vaux’s sake — ?” 

“Why — yes,” with a surprised laugh. 
“ You see, I never had the pleasure of 
knowing you before.” 

“No, you never knew me” — with 
whitening lips, patting down her ruffles. 
Dick looked down at her, puzzled, trying 
to find out the key to her agitation. Her 
ordinary habit of society helped her quickly 
to outward composure. 

“ You have a sweet, quiet place here, Mr. 
Dort,”she said presently. 

“ Yes, it’s certainly quiet,” looking about 
with a half-grimace. “ It’s a poor place 
enough, God knows! You and Miss Vaux 
must see that, though you’re so polite as 
to appear to like it. There’s such a lack 
of all that you’re both used .to — elegance 
and style. No hopes of them I ” 


72 


NATASQUA. 


Poor Mrs. Vaux, who was watching every 
turn in her son’s face, laughed. “ Do they 
count for so much to you ? ” with a queer 
pathos in her voice. 

It moved Dick, who was feverish and ex- 
cited at any rate, to sudden confidence. 
“’Pon my soul, ma’am, I believe they count 
for every thing ! ” throwing himself down 
beside her. “ Why, they stand between me 
and all that is worth having in the world ! 
Two months ago I would have been satis- 
fied to see a clear way before me to earn a 
respectable living, and to have, of course, a 
little time to spare every day for a book or 
a newspaper. Now — well, now I see that 
there is one thing more which I must have, 
or I give up life at once ; and I can never 
obtain it without rank, and position, and 
style. How the devil am /to have position 
and style ? ” with a sudden, despairing ges- 
ture, as though he tried to clutch an intan- 


NA TASQUA. 


73 


gible something in the air. He recovered 
himself presently, with an awkward laugh. 
“ I beg your pardon, Mrs. Vaux ; I’m sure I 
don’t know why I should talk to you in this 
way ! ” 

“ / know.” She put out her hand timidly 
and touched his hair. There was a certain 
proud sense of possession in the touch. 
This was her son. There was, too, the 
mother’s love that had been famishing within 
her all her life, and never till this moment 
found chance of utterance. “ What is it 
that you want? Can I help you? If I 
could help you, Mr. Dort, it — it would mat- 
ter more to me than you know.” 

Dick drew back a little, on his guard. 
'‘You’re — you’re very kind, I am sure. I 
thought, perhaps, you would prove our 
friend. She has told you, perhaps?” look- 
ing at her searchingly. 

“ Romy ? No. But I knew. I guessed. 


74 


NATASQUA. 


Oh, when I was a girl I knew what true 
love was ! ” fluttering her skirts with a pa- 
thetic little cackle. “ I had begun to think 
there was no such thing left in the world, 
until you and Romy — ” 

“ I do not know that Miss Vaux cares for 
me. I have never spoken to her as I am 
doing to you.” 

“ Cares for you? Oh, there can be no 
doubt as to that ! ” drawing herself up an- 
grily. The idea of Major Vaux’s daughter 
rejecting her son ! 

“ Do you think that ? Thank God ! ” 
Dort took out his handkerchief and wiped 
his face. 

“ I’m quite sure of it.” 

“You’ll think me a fool, no doubt,” he 
said after a while, “ to care for any woman 
so much;” thoughtfully crumpling his hand- 
kerchief into a ball. Once sure of Romy’s 
love, the old, comfortable complacency 


NA TASQUA. 


75 


began to warm in his veins. “ It was always 
my theory, Mrs. Vaux, that love and mar- 
riage were comparatively trivial matters, 
which a man should hold in his hands, as 
one might say, apart from his real business 
in life, to keep or throw from him” — and 
he threw the ball into his hat at his feet, 
with a certain decisive, victorious air — “ at 
pleasure. At pleasure. But since I met 
Miss Vaux, I really am so metamorphosed 
that I hardly know myself.” He looked at 
her, and laughed like a boy. It was a very 
frank, bright face. “ My theory seems to 
have failed me.” 

“ I understand.” For it seemed to her 
that she was Fanny Dort again, in white 
muslin and pink sash, and John beside her. 
Here were his eyes and smile — this was the 
very same rough, cordial voice. She had 
been a woman with that old lover ; she had 
known love like other women ; for the rest 


76 


NATASQUA. 


of her life she had been a doll, a milliner’s 
block. 

“ I understand it very well,” said the poor 
lady, with the tears coming to her eyes. 

“ I have nothing, you see, to offer Miss 
Vaux,” continued Dort, gravely, “but a 
home like this. I’ll tell the truth about it 
from the first. I don’t want to deceive you. 
You see what I am. You see the house. 
This is the best I may have for years. I’ll 
do what I can to push my business. But I 
know nothing and can do nothing outside 
of Natasqua. I can never give her the 
fashion and luxury which she has now. 
What do you say ?” 

He watched her anxiously. She looked 
at the room, with its white board floor, the 
fire burning up from the gray ashes ; then 
out at the apple orchard, with the friendly 
trees on the hill-slope, so still that you could 
hear the crickets hopping through the seed- 


NATASQUA. 


77 


grass ; and down to the broad river, tran- 
quilly flowing below, while the evening sky 
stained it a dull red. They thought their 
own thoughts out quietly — trees, and skies, 
and river. 

A sudden conviction came to her that this 
was home. Here love, and truth, and God 
waited. In the house at Fifteenth Street 
there were, she thought, neither love nor 
God. Why should the girl not come here ? 
Why ? When she knew this boy’s father 
she, too, had had a chance of truth and rest, 
and had put it away. “ It would have 
been salvation for me,” she thought ; “ yes, 
salvation.” 

“ What is it ?” said Dort, uneasily, seeing 
her wipe away the tears. Mrs. Vaux’s tears 
always were ready to flow. “ Did I vex 
you in any way ? ” 

“ Oh, dear, no ! I was only thinking. 
Just a little matter that happened to me 


7 » 


jvaTasqua. 


long ago, in which you were not concerned, 
except — that is — well, relatively.” 

“ You would be willing, then, for your 
daughter to come to me here?” 

“ Yes.” She gave a queer laugh, and then 
was silent. He might as well, she thought, 
have asked her if she would be willing for 
Romy to go in and sit down with the blest 
in heaven. Was not he here? her son? 
Romy could sit down with him here forever, 
in love and quiet, secure. She must go 
back outside into the sham and eternal 
pushing and lying. But all she said was : 
“ It will be very pleasant for Romy. Per- 
haps you will let me come for a little while 
now and then ?” 

“You think there will be no difficulty, 
then, about Major Vaux’s consent ? ” Dick 
was intent on driving home his wedge. 

“ Major Vaux ? ” With the word a change 
came over her from head to foot. She 


NATASQUA. 


79 


woke, as it were, completely. “ The major ! 
But you know it would be impossible for 
you to marry Major Vauxs daughter. 
Really to marry, you know. I know” — 
breathlessly — “ it’s like a church here, and 
makes one feel religious, and all that ; and 
you would have true love — and / know what 
that is,” stopping to sob. “ But then, actu- 
ally — you see, actually — looking at it ration- 
ally — . There are no carpets, and not even 
shades to the windows ; and — well, this is 
really a kitchen, to speak plainly, and if you 
even had the money to build an addition, 
you could only have one parlor ; and what 
could Romy, raised as she has been, do with 
one parlor ? Why, Mr. Langton has a house 
in town, and a place on Staten Island. Oh, 
very stylish! And yet the major — oh, if 
you talk of marrying, it’s impossible — im- 
possible ! ” 

Dort s face darkened sullenly. “ I have 


8o 


NATASQUA. 


a mind, however, to go to him to-night, and 
tell him plainly what I want, and who I am.” 

“Who you are? Yes; if you were to 
marry Romy, it must be told who you are.” 
She added, slowly, in a low voice, “I had 
forgotten that.” 

“ He can learn it from any man in the 
county,” blurted out Dick, boldly. “ There 
is but one thing that can be said against me. 
I am a man whose only disgrace was his 
mother. Am I responsible for her shame ?” 

“ No, no,” moaned the poor little woman. 
But Dort did not hear her. His heat and 
chagrin made him deaf ; he walked to the 
door, and stood there sulkily, giving a kick 
to the dog who came to rub against his leg. 

Mrs. Vaux sat pressing her thin palms 
together. “ Shame ? but he’s my son ; my 
son,” she repeated again and again. “ If I 
can give Romy to him he’d forgive me. 
He’d never say that to me again — never.” 


NATASQUA. Si 

She tried to speak once or twice, but still 
sat dumb. “ Her shame !” 

Like most weak, shallow women, Fanny 
Vaux had always been gently handled ; even 
the majors gross touch had grown tender 
for her. Now — it was her son who had flung 
the vile insult in her face. No wonder that 
she gasped, unable to find words to answer 
him. She half rose. 

“ I’ll tell him the truth. I’ll throw myself 
at his feet and let him kill me, if he wants 
to ! ” But her courage gave way in two 
steps. “ If I could secure Romy for him, 
he would forgive me any thing.” 

As girl or woman, Fanny Vaux was noted 
for her petty, amiable cunning. Her plan 
came to her like an inspiration. She went 
up and touched him on the elbow : “ Listen 
to me. I’ll do all I can to secure Romy for 
you. But it is useless to try to conquer her 
father. If we leave the beach and go back 


82 


NATASQUA. 


to town she is as completely out of your 
reach as if she were — well, inside the wall of 
China, and you know what that is. Your 
love seems reasonable enough here. But 
there — ! ” she had a sudden vision of Dort, 
in his brown velveteen Sunday suit, and 
jaunty cap stuck on one side, presenting 
himself at her Thursday receptions. “If 
she goes back, she is lost to you.” 

“ I do not intend to lose her,” steadily. “ I 
mean to marry her. I will tell her father so. 
I’ll wait for her as long as Jacob waited for 
Rachel. Position and style ? They’re not 
impossible things.” 

“ Oh, but they are — they are, I assure 
you!” hastily. “ I know the world ; trust 
to me. We go back in three days, and Ro- 
maine Vaux is then utterly out of your 
power.” 

“What do you want me to do, then?” 

“ Marry her to-morrow. Let the marriage 


NATASQUA. 


83 


remain a secret until you are ready to claim 
her. Major Vaux has no power over man 
and wife.” 

Dick stood stunned a moment, and then 
laughed. “ You are a bold ally, Mrs. Vaux. 
But your plan'seems a trifle cowardly to me. 
I hate underhanded work, especially in any 
thing so — so sacred as marriage. I will, at 
least, go to him first, and if he refuses — why 
then—” 

“ Go to Romy now. She is down by the 
river. She knows her father. She will show 
you how practicable your scheme is.” 

“ It may not be practicable, but it is 
honest.” 

“ Go to Romy,” shaking her head with 
mild mulishness. 

There was a heavy, leisurely step on the 
porch, and old Inskip came in. Natasqua 
people are never surprised. He took off his 
old cap and held it in both hands, smiling as 


8 4 


NATASQUA. 


though this astounding, beruffled, fidgety 
apparition was a daily visitor. 

“This is Miss Vaux’s mother, father.” 

Inskip held out his hand. “ That young 
lady and I count on each other as friends,” 
he said. “ She comes here often.” 

He sat down and began to pull the leather- 
colored breeches down over his knees ; but 
they, having no sense of gentility, resented 
this departure from their normal condition, 
and hung in rolls, like weather-beaten sails 
bulged by the wind. 

“ The skin of his legs is burned quite a 
mud-color,” reflected Mrs. Vaux, gravely. 
She immediately felt the duty of thought- 
fully deciding upon the character of the man 
who had trained her boy. “ My fingers 
smell of clams since he shook hands, and as 
for his nails, I really don’t think he trims 
them once a month.” 

But there was something in his face 


NATASQUA. 


85 


which made her stop short. She did not 
attempt to sound or define it. The tears 
came to her eyes. “ Very likely he was a 
better father to my son than his own would 
have been.” 

She stole a furtive, keen glance toward 
him now and again. But she was met each 
time by a glance which, though grave and 
kind, was shrewder than her own. She got 
up and walked uneasily across the room. 
“ What does he know?” she thought. 
“ What can he know ? ” 


CHAPTER V. 


Dort had a habit of striking the nail on 
the head without the least concern as to 
where the point went. “ Father,” he said, 
bluntly, “you remember the conversation 
we had yesterday, when I told you of my 
wishes in regard to Miss Vaux?” 

The old man started, looked at Mrs. 
Vaux, and then at the fire, like an embar- 
rassed boy. 

“ I remember, Richard,” he said, deliber- 
ately, at last. But he was ill at ease. He 
had never had a love affair of his own, and 
for weeks he had been turning over this 
trouble of Dick’s in his mind with a tender, 
delicious fear and delight. And now the 
boy was hauling it out in the market-place, 
so to speak, to air and examine it. 


NATASQUA. 


87 


“ Oh, yes ! ” clearing his throat, “ I remem- 
ber.” 

“ Mrs. Vaux has suggested a course for 
me. She will talk it over with you until I 
come back. I have not made up my mind 
yet about it.” 

“ I wonder if Dick really thinks it is 
oysters he is going to buy?” thought 
Inskip, with a quick look of alarm at Mrs. 
Vaux. But she saw no cause for offense. 
Her eyes were fixed on Dick, who threw on 
his cap, took a stealthy glance at the hand- 
some, confident face under it in the mirror, 
and went out. 

The old man followed him, trotting by 
his side until they were out of hearing. He 
stopped under an apple-tree. “Richard!” 
catching him by the sleeve, and pausing as 
if for breath. 

“ What is it ? You look horribly cut up, 
father. You’re not worrying about this 


88 


NATASQUA. 


matter of Romy’s? It will all come right. 
You shouldn’t take my troubles so hard, 
dear old boy ! ” clapping him on the shoulder. 

“Did she tell you who she was?” under 
his breath. 

“Who? Mrs. Vaux? Why, of course. 
That is, she only told me she was Romy’s 
mother ; but I can see for myself that she 
is a woman of high fashion. Good-hearted, 
too, and with any amount of hard common 
sense. There are not many women whom 
I can not read. My eyes are wide open.” 

“ Oh yes, wide open !” abstractedly. “ I’d 
have thought you could soon read this poor 
woman.” He looked at Dick steadily a 
minute, as if deciding on some puzzle to 
himself, and then deliberately, as usual, 
took his hand from his sleeve. “ Go on, 
Dick. I’ll keep her till you come back.” 

But Inskip did not return directly to the 
house. He made a pretext to himself of 


NATASQUA. 


89 


going into the garden for parsley and sweet 
basil. He had not the courage to meet the 
woman again. 

“ Why, the mother’s look in her eyes 
would have touched a stone, and Dick 
never saw it,” sorting his sprigs of herbs in 
even lengths. He thought he quite under- 
stood how it was with her. How these 
twenty years of remorse and guilt lay on 
her. How, at the sight of him, she would 
try to read her boy’s soul, to see if he was 
likely to have a clearer and purer record 
than hers had been. And when she had 
found the same temptation put in his way 
before which she had fallen, to love outside 
of his station, the poor creature had devised 
some plan to save him from both her dis- 
appointment and her crime. 

“ She hadn’t courage to make herself 
known to him, and no wonder ! She’s just 
waiting, I reckon, till he’s gone, to speak to 


9 o 


NATASQUA. 


me. I’d best hurry in.” But he made haste 
slowly. Pain or supreme passion were 
strangers to Natasqua, and of all men 
Inskip was the most cowardly to go and 
meet them. 

“I’ll be back with the pail, Bess, pres- 
ently,” patting the brown cow that thrust 
her head out to be stroked. The chickens 
were flapping and cackling their way up into 
the dusky apple-trees to roost. The katy- 
dids began to drone on the bark. A fish- 
hawk came with great circular sweeps out of 
the red horizon to perch for the night on its 
dead tree in the middle of the meadow. 
“ Now I reckon that poor creature would 
rather tell her story by daylight than night” 
— and this thought drove him in quickly. 
The poor creature was sitting, languidly 
poising one of her daintily booted feet 
before the fire. She was wondering, if 
Romy ever did come there to live, how 


NATASQUA. 


91 


about her shoes? Country cobblers were no 
better than blacksmiths, and Romy’s feet 
were really so perfect ! But she would never 
come. That chance of happiness was over 
for her boy. 

“ It is I who have done it. Ten years ago, 
if I had claimed him, he might have been 
something better than a crab-fisher. I have 
been his curse.” 

Inskip saw her staring gloomily into the 
fire. He drew out the table, put a cloth over 
it, and began to make the tea. Any thing to 
give her time and composure. The fragrant 
steam came out from the pot on the hearth 
in a soft, white whiff. Some soft crabs began 
to sputter with a savory smell in a pan on 
the fire. Inskip brought out a great loaf of 
home-made bread from the cupboard. Mrs. 
Vaux was both hungry and tired of emotion ; 
besides, she had been a country girl in her 
youth, and this supper was a different affair 


9 2 


NATASQUA. 


and more appetizing than Adolph’s efforts 
of high art. 

“ O dear, I would like to cut that bread ! ” 
jumping up. “ It is so nice in you to have 
tea while we are here. There ! See how 
even these slices are. Oh, I used to be a 
famous bread-cutter ! but that is such a long 
time ago. Where in the world did you pick 
up this old blue basket-ware china ? Why, 
it’s as precious nowadays as molten gold. 
Off a wreck ? Actually a wreck ? Oh, I 
wish Romy would make haste ! The idea 
of drinking tea out of a shipwrecked cup ! ” 

The delight seemed to bewilder her ; she 
sat down and kept silence for two minutes. 
Then she plunged into the very bottom of the 
matter which troubled her. “ The way I look 
at it is this, Mr. Inskip” (confidentially): 
“ Romy might not have a parlor or shoes. 
But really you don’t know how pleasant this 
room is ; a great deal larger than the poky 


NATASQUA. 


93 


little sitting-room in Fifteenth Street, for of 
course we never use the reception-rooms 
ourselves. It’s really lovely here, with the 
orchard and all. And if you’ve no carpets 
you’ve no moths ; as the major says, there 
are always compensations ; and if Romy had 
a stout person to come in and do the rough 
work, I really don’t think cutting bread and 
making tea and so on is so objectionable ; 
even the cooking crabs appears to be almost 
a joke ; and these wrecked plates and things 
— why, there’s not a woman in our set who 
would not give her eyes for them ! Shoes 
might be sent by express ; and now there is 
the whole matter in a nutshell. Outside of 
these differences, why it’s all the same at 
bottom. Romy crochets or reads in Fif- 
teenth Street ; she would read and crochet 
in Natasqua. I protest, when you look at 
it philosophically that way, the thing seems 
perfectly feasible to me.” 


94 


NATASQUA. 


“I am glad you think so.” Inskip, fork 
in hand, looked, bewildered, alternately from 
her to his crabs, understanding the nature 
of one about as much as the other. “ I 
was afeard there might be some difficulty 
in the boy’s way. He spoke of Miss Vaux’s 
father.” 

“ Oh, the major ! ” with a momentary col- 
lapse all over ; but she rose elastic. “ That 
difficulty can be managed — that is, if it is 
managed cleverly. A little judicious ma- 
neuvering is all that is needed. I want 
them to leave it to me,” with a sagacious 
nod. 

“ Kin I ask you how you purpose to 
manage it, ma’am ? ” he hesitated, after a 
long silence — “ the boy’s bin like a son to 
me, you know.” 

Her cheek-bones grew red. “He is my 
son — that is, he will be when he is Romy’s 
husband, of course. It would be quite 


NATASQUA. 


95 


impossible lor you , or anybody, to understand 
the interest I take in Richard Dort,” with a 
complacent, boastful little laugh, so like to 
Dick’s own that Inskip started. 

“ She has his nose, too, and his kerridge 
precisely ; head a bit on one side. But it’s 
hard to think she’s the woman I’ve bin look- 
in’ for all these years,” he thought, with many 
furtive glances at the shallow, excited face 
opposite. Poor Fanny appeared in her most 
unmotherly phase. A maneuver or a petty 
secret always intoxicated her like a draught 
of heady wine. The consciousness that she 
had a son living, so long as she was forced 
to keep it locked in her own breast, had 
been a dead, unaltering weight, dragging her 
down night and day like a hand from the 
grave. But this meeting him and Inskip, 
herself unknown ; this fence and parry to 
escape detection ; this plotting and counter- 
plotting on Romy’s behalf — why, it was a 


9 6 


NATASQUA. 

play ! She was the heroine of a melodrama ! 
They were all puppets, and she pulled the 
string. 

“ You may be sure, Mr. Inskip,” she chat- 
tered on excitedly, “ I’ll do the best that can 
be done for the young people. I think I can 
say, without flattering myself, I have always 
had some skill in managing love affairs. 
They need the sensibility of youth, with the 
judgment of an older head. Now in this 
case I propose a secret marriage, to be kept 
secret until Richard is able to support his 
wife. That settles all difficulties. Richard 
is satisfied ; the major can’t be dissatisfied 
(as he’ll know nothing about it) ; and I — it 
would be better for me, too,” her voice 
growing suddenly feeble. “ For if Richard 
goes to Major Vaux for his daughter, I 
must go with him, and claim him as my 
son,” she repeated to herself again and 
again. That was the ground on which she 


NATASQUA. 


97 


built her whole comprehension of the mat- 
ter. 

Inskip stuck the fork into the table, and 
stood with his hands folded behind him, 
looking into the fire. 

“You don’t seem to approve of my plan ? ” 
testily. 

“ No,” turning his grave, stern eyes on 
hers. “ I kin see no use in Richard’s acting 
a lie for years.” 

“ It is to gain a wife he loves. It seems 
to me it must be salvation to a man to 
marry for love. Or for a woman. This is 
the only chance for him.” 

“ I kin see no use in a man acting a lie for 
years. Least of all, on account of his sal- 
vation,” repeated the old man, doggedly. 

Mrs. Vaux gave an impatient little flirt in 
her chair. “ Obstinate old mule ! ” she said 
inwardly. “ Perhaps, my dear sir,” aloud 
and energetically, “you think there would 


9 8 


NATASQUA . 


be danger of detection. But that’s because 
you don’t know the world. Success in such 
a thing all depends on knowing the world. 
A little skill and management. Why, I 
knew of such a secret being kept — a child 
was born and its existence was unknown for 
twenty years ; just think — twenty years ! 
No shadow of suspicion fell on the mother 
in all that time. Oh, I assure you, Mr. 
Inskip, nothing’s easier if you only know the 
way to do it ! ” 

“ Is it a good way ? Kin you recommend 
it to my boy ? ” He turned his head away, 
afraid to see her face if he hurt her, but 
went on steadily: “ ’Ud that mother now, 
d’ ye think, recommend to her boy to follow 
her in her shame ? Has it been so good 
for her?” 

Mrs. Vaux rose passionately, but before 
she found words the passion was gone. The 
life-long, dead pain tugged at her with its old 


NATASQUA . 


99 


intolerable weight. She got up trembling 
and crying aloud, and went out, but without 
a word to him, into the garden and down to 
follow her son. 


CHAPTER VI. 


Miss Vaux was sitting in the long grass 
under a big paper mulberry, on the river’s 
edge. The shadow was as dark as a tent 
over her and Dort, who stood beside her, 
and far above was the tenting sky, its still 
and vast folds shutting them in. A chance 
beam of light fell on her head, with its cap 
and tuft of scarlet feather. The river was 
a silent pathway of steel gray through the 
dusk ; on its further shore a boat, with spec- 
tral sail, tacked and jibbed silently as a ghost. 
The dark figure of a crab-fisher, of which 
only the head and arms could be seen above 
the water, passed noiselessly along the shore, 
an unwieldy boat coming after, tied to his 
waist. He passed out of sight. The si- 
lence was absolute. There are no singing 


NATASQUA. 


IOI 


birds in these woods : no birds at all except 
dark, tiny sparrows, who hop along the 
sand without a twitter. 

“ It might be the shore of the Styx,” said 
Miss Vaux, speaking with an effort. “ And 
yonder is Charon’s boat, waiting for a pass- 
enger.” 

Dort made no reply. 

“ Look at the coloring on the bark of this 
tree, Mr. Dort. Red, purple, saffron, every 
shade of the browns. One would think 
nature had used it for her palette, or tried 
her brushes on it.” 

“Confound nature and her palette!” 
said Mr. Dort inwardly. But his lips were 
inexorably shut. 

“ They ought soon to cut the sedge,” she 
ventured, thirdly. “ This is quite dry.” 

“ What do I care for Charon, or the sedge ? 
Why do you talk in this way to me ?” 

“ Because there is nothing else left for us 


102 


NATASQUA. 


to talk of,” she answered steadily. “ Because, 
one day more and we will be strangers to 
each other for the remainder of our lives. It 
is safer that we should meet as strangers 
now,” 

“ Romy ! ” 

She rose as though against her will and 
stood beside him. He held out his hands 
to her. 

“Yes, I know,” she said, answering words 
which he did not speak, “ 1 know what I 
am to you.” 

“ But you — you ! I am a clam-digger to 
you, that’s all ! A vulgar fellow that could 
amuse you for the time ; something curious, 
a little out of the common town-way, to be 
ranked with the sea-horse that you dried, or 
the plaice, with both eyes on one side — eh?” 

“ You are unjust ; ” quietly. “ I have told 
you that I love you.” 

“ But what kind of love is it ? ” When she 


J\fA TASQCfA. 


103 


did not answer, he stood hot and fuming 
beside her, without speaking. In his secret 
soul he was ashamed of his rage at being 
thwarted. It seemed to him, as the dark 
tree shut them in, there was but this one liv- 
ing creature in all the world. It seemed as 
if, by a swift, hard insight, he saw for the 
first time clearly himself and his past life, 
his incompleteness, his uncontrolled temper, 
his ignorance, his conceit. All that he 
lacked waited for him in her. Mentally, 
if he reasoned about it, of course Romy 
was a weak, soft creature. Yet she had a 
curious effect upon him ; the man he 
might be, which he never had thought of 
till she came, stood before him whenever 
he was by her side, clear and healthy and 
real as to-day’s noon sunshine. Soft and weak 
though she might be, there was an invisible 
wall about her, too, stronger than any 
strength which he knew. He was parting 


104 


NATASQUA. 


from her, in all probability, forever; he was 
mad with passion to touch her ; her babyish 
mouth, her thin, blue-veined hand, with the 
glove half off, her cloak, were but a hand’s 
breadth from him, yet he could not put his 
finger on them. The line of invisible air 
might have been a gulf wide as death, so 
impassable was it. He spoke at last. She 
turned quickly. 

“ There is but one day more, and then you 
are gone. Do you know what it is that you 
leave me to ? I wish I could tell you. I have 
no words like the men who are your com- 
panions.” 

He stopped short. How could he show 
her that she was the only gleam from 
that outer world of refinement and cul- 
ture which had ever come to him ? He could 
not tell her that when she was gone he would 
sink back into Dick Dort, clam and oyster 
trader, with neither ideas nor ambitions 


NATASQUA. 


I0 5 

beyond a lucky planting or a sharp sale. Was 
it best to tell any silly girl that she had such 
absolute power over a man’s fate ? He would 
have liked to assert the proper difference 
between man and woman ; to be masterful, 
dominant ; to beckon her toward him as the 
sultan his favorite. But he found that, in 
fact, he did nothing of the kind ; he only 
raged or complained. “You think of duty. 
You have no thought for me,” he said sul- 
lenly. In spite of his flash of humility, he 
felt that he was well worth thinking of. He 
was sure that there were very high places in 
the world waiting for himself, or men like 
him. “ Give me a chance of calling you 
wife, Romy, and I will show you what I can 
make of myself.” 

Now Miss Vaux had neither her father’s 
love of talking, nor his facility of expression. 
Whenever she was driven to the wall and 
forced to speak, otherwise than by looks or 


io6 


NATASQUA. 


smiles, her words were few, and not particu- 
larly well chosen. 

“ I never thought of what you would be. 
It’s only what you are. You are so — so 
honest ; and I have not always lived among 
honest people.” Her dark blue eyes met 
his, but not steadily as usual. They were 
full of tears j she held out her hand, hoping 
he would take it. Romy had neither love 
nor petting at home ; had never had them ; 
she only, therefore, like most still, cold- 
mannered women, wanted them a little more 
than the rest of her sex. 

But Dick drew back, biting his lips. 
“ Don’t touch me, unless you will come to 
me altogether.” 

“ It is you who forbid me to come. I 
do love you. Why won’t you believe that 
I love you, Richard?” 

“ How should I believe you ? There is 
but one chance that you should become my 
wife, and that you refuse.” 


A r ATASQUA. 


107 


“ It is not the only one,” 

“ What can I do but adopt your mothers 
su gg es tion ? I confess it did seem cowardly 
tome at first. But I see no other course.” 

“ It is not cowardly only, it is base ; it — 
is — no matter : it is one which I will never 
accept. I will be no man’s wife clandes- 
tinely.” 

“ When I came to you to-night I thought 
your father might consent. But you — ” 

“ I don’t underrate the difficulty, as you 
did. He will not consent to-morrow, nor the 
next day, perhaps never.” 

“ What would you have me do, then ? ” 

“ Go to him fairly. He is human, after 
all,” she said laughing. “ He knows what 
love is. There never was loyaler lover than 
he to his wife. Let us wait. Love and 
patience and common sense can conquer 
any thing in time.” 

“ I do not see how you can talk cheer- 


NATASQUA . 


108 

fully and be ready to joke about it,” he 
said, clapping his hat on irritably. 

“ Life does not seem so tragic a matter to 
me, after all, Richard. There’s no need of 
putting our love into the Ercles’ vein. There 
is no danger of our growing old or gray- 
headed. What if we should wait a year or 
two ? ” 

“ I don’t know what you mean by the 
Ercles’ vein. I do know that you throw me 
off as you would a cast-off shoe, without a 
thought. I ask for no more than a legal 
hold on you, that I may claim you when the 
time comes.” 

Miss Vaux’s blue eyes watched him with 
a quizzical laugh. “ It is my father, I think, 
that you propose I should fling away like 
a worn-out shoe that had served his turn. 
Doesn’t it occur to you that the nineteen 
years of love and service he has given me 
deserve that I should not turn my back on 


NATASQUA. 109 

him for a friend of three weeks’ acquaint- 
ance, without at least something of a decent 
apology ? I am unromantic and prosaic, 
perhaps. I know you have all the poets 
and novelists on your side. But, Richard,” 
and then her voice broke, and she held out 
her hand again, “ my love for you is the 
honestest and purest thing that ever came' 
to me. Don’t ask me to make it a sham 
and a lie. I can’t eat my father’s bread for 
years under a false name, plotting against 
him and tricking him, day and night. If 
that is all that is left to us, I’ll go back to 
him; you can stay here.” 

With that the young lady turned and 
walked up the hill. If she had carried her 
head stiffly or set her feet down sharply like 
any other angry woman, Dick would have 
followed her and renewed the struggle. But 
she went on her way with as easy, soft tread 
as the day he met her first, the same genial, 


no 


NATASQtJA. 


quizzical laugh on her pretty face. There 
was no means of knowing how much flint lay 
under that soft-tinted flesh and good humor. 
He let her go, and sat down doggedly on 
the ground, clasping his hands about his 
knees. 

“ It’s all very well to jog cheerfully along 
through life in that way, or to preach that 
it will all come right if we do our duty in a 
humdrum, honest way” (which poor Romy 
had never preached, by the way). “ But 
there is pain and passion in the world, of 
which you know nothing, Romaine Vaux ! ” 
looking bitterly after her retreating figure, 
retreating more slowly when she found he 
did not follow her. 

On the top of the hill she found her mother 
engaged in active conflict with a blackberry- 
bush that had caught her frizzy camels’-hair 
trimming. 

“ I don’t believe you’ll ever get me loose 


NATASQUA . 


1 1 1 


in the world, Romy. And I have my stock- 
ings full of nettles besides. Whats the 
matter, child ? You’ve been crying. You 
did not consent to my plan ? Oh, very well ! 
You mean to break our hearts altogether ? ” 

“ It will not be so fatal a matter as that, 
mother,” looking up from her knees and the 
brambles ; “ give father time to see that we 
are in earnest, and he will consent.” 

“ Never, Romaine Vaux ! Never ! You do 
not remember that Richard is a poor fish- 
erman ; it’s very romantic, I know, but really 
that room is only a kitchen ; one can not 
disguise the fact.” 

“ I remember when my father was a poor 
shoemaker, and I’ve seen our old room in 
Shanly Court,” said Romy, quietly. 

“ Oh, very well ! But don’t talk of those 
old times ; it’s very unpleasant, and in bad 
taste — very bad ! Your father is a gentleman 
now, and in affluence. He hasn’t a settled 


12 


NATASQUA. 


income, to be sure, but the public — don’t 
look in that way, Romy. Don’t say you’re 
tired of living off the public.” 

“ I did not say so, mother,” gently adjust- 
ing the cloak. 

“ It would be very improper if you had. 
It is not delicate in young girls to set them- 
selves up as censors of their parents. Your 
father puts the case very aptly about the 
public and a donkey ; I forget the simile, but 
it’s very complete. But to go back. He 
never would allow you to leave the world of 
refinement and culture in which you live, to 
come here.” 

“ There may be such a world,” said Romy, 
her soft cheek reddening, “ but it’s certain 
that we don’t live in it. I’m tired of our 
miserable aping, and our paste jewelry, and 
gold that is washed brass. Oh, I am so 
tired!” 

Mrs. Vaux looked at her in dismay. “ I 


NATASQUA. 


Ir 3 

never wore washed brass in my life,” she 
ejaculated solemnly to herself. “ French 
gilt I may have — . Well, if you are tired of 
it,” raising her voice, “ why don’t you escape 
from it ? Why not marry my — this poor 
boy ? He loves you, Romy, as nobody ever 
will again.” 

“ Because I will not make life itself as 
much of a sham as the rest. Oh, mother, 
can’t you see ? Can nobody understand ? ” 

“ There, there, there ! ” stroking her head. 
“ I understand all about it, but as for wait- 
ing for your father’s consent — do you know 
him, Romaine Vaux ? that’s all I ask — do 
you know him ? ” 

Romy wiped her red eyes. “ I know him 
as you do not, mother. I remember when 
I was a child in that room in Shanly Court, 
puny, cross, and sick. Father was police 
reporter for the Times. I remember when 
he would come in at one o’clock in the 


NATASQUA. 


114 

morning, worn out with the day’s work, and 
sit in his shirt-sleeves, time and again, rock- 
ing and singing to me till daylight. I do 
not forget that. I can’t cheat him now.” 

“ Oh, very well ! The matter is decided. 
Go and bid good-by to your crony, Mr. In- 
skip. I certainly have no desire to meet 
him again ; I consider him intolerably rude ! 
I will wait for you here.” She sat down on 
the dry sedge. The moon had risen ; its 
even, cold light grew cheerful and tender, 
falling on the homely farm-house, the or- 
chard, the bright river with its incessant, 
drowsy whisper to the shore. She drew a 
long breath of relief. 11 It certainly is better 
than the gaslight on the bricks, and the 
policeman eternally tramp, tramping up and 
down.” It was a happy nest for her boy 
and Romy ; but there he sat, sullen and 
despairing, on the river’s brink. And there 
was Romy, going from him every moment. 


NATASQUA. 


IX S 


The two black figures drew further apart, 
not to meet again. “ And it is I that have 
done it ! ” 

For a moment the ordinary bewilderment 
of scraps and tag-rag of thoughts cleared 
away from her brain, and she saw the truth 
face to face. If major Vaux knew that 
Dort was her son, she secretly believed he 
would allow Romy to marry him. “ The boy 
has pluck and business energy. He is a 
Dort, and the Major counts blood for so 
much ! ” she said to herself. The story 
would not be so terrible to tell, after all. 
She was but a school-girl of sixteen when 
she ran away with John Walt. They were 
legally married ; she had the certificate still. 
It was her mother’s plan to keep the silly 
marriage concealed until they were of age, 
but when Walt died, and her baby also, as 
they told her, it was her own, to let it 
remain a secret. “ I had all mamma’s skill 


Il6 NATASQUA. 

in affairs,” thought Fanny, complacently. 
Only a few years ago she had learned that 
her child still lived. “ Oh, if I had only 
told him then ! ” she said. “ But now — ” 
yet even now it might give her boy a wife, 
place, name for life ; it would take away the 
shame of his birth. “ I have done nothing 
for him. Nothing ! Surely I can do this 
little thing. The major loves me. He’ll 
forgive me. I will go to him to-night — 
now.” She got up ; there were none of the 
ready tears in her eyes ; the real pain at her 
heart had dried them. She tied on her bon- 
net. When the icy fingers touched her 
chin — “ I declare it’s just like death,” she 
gasped. “ Oh, I daren’t ! I daren’t ! ” Was 
there no plan, nothing to take the place of 
this dragging open her whole treacherous 
life, as at the bar of judgment ? 

One good, honest effort and all would be 
well. 


NATASQUA. 


117 

“ But dear, dear ! a little clever bit of 
finesse serves one just as well, generally, as 
honesty,” said Mrs. Vaux, even while she 
dragged herself slowly to the tent. “It 
always has me. Let me think ; let me 
think!” Her steps grew slower and 
slower ; whatever she did must be done at 
once. There was but to-morrow ; after 
that, Dort was lost to her and Romy for- 
ever. She stopped, leaning against a tree. 
Suddenly the heat began to creep back to 
her flesh, the dingy color to her powdered 
cheeks ; her eyes twinkled ; she began to 
flirt her fan vigorously. “ I have it ! I have 
it!” she cried, and, turning, went hastily 
toward the tent ; then, recollecting herself, 
sat down and patiently waited for Romy. 


CHAPTER VII. 


The next day proved cold and threaten- 
ing. The nor’easter was rising steadily. 
The river and coast were deserted, the fisher- 
men all having taken their schooners and 
surf-boats across to the bay, where an unpre- 
cedentedly large shoal of mackerel were 
running in. Only Dort remained. He had 
been coasting along shore in the Maid all 
day. The Maid was a light-built, one- 
masted boat, sitting high out of the water, 
with that queer, prompt, knowing look 
which some boats have, even to landsmen’s 
eyes, as though by dint of long intercourse 
with living beings a kind of actual life had 
crept into them ; not human precisely ; 
more akin to the animal. To seafaring men 


NATASQUA. 


119 

this life is as tangible as their own. The 
Maid was no favorite on the coast. Dort 
had often been warned against her. Even 
old Inskip had cautioned him. “ She’s 
unlucky, Dick,” he used to say. “She 
means mischief some day. Take that band 
of yaller paint off her ; it looks like the ring 
about a copperhead’s neck. It maybe that. 
Though Ben Stolls says there was a man 
killed at her launchin’ down the bay, and the 
mark of the blood’s on her bows. If that’s 
the case, there’s no help for her.” 

In spite of their ominous croaking, how- 
ever, the Maid had gone up and down the 
river for years, a faithful, pretty maid 
enough ; and to-day, with her blood-red 
pennants fluttering apeak, a gayly dressed 
maid. Too gayly for the dull, sad day, old 
Inskip thought, watching her, gaudy with 
yellow and red, darting to and fro through 
the wet mist ; watching her dip until the 


120 


NATASQUA. 


angry water rushed in a torrent over her, 
and then saucily right herself. She was a 
painted Jezebel. It was an insolent toying 
with death. But the old man was full of 
sickly fancies to-day, and morbid. Dick 
and his Maid had river and sea to them- 
selves. Not a boat was on the water. Not 
a step broke the silence of the marshes 
along shore, up which the tide crept in black, 
snake-like lines. The hills stood apart and 
solitary, like half-effaced sketches in India 
ink, upon the unhealthy, yellow sky. On 
summer days the Natasqua carried some 
secret — life, or content, or cheerfulness — 
among them ; one hardly could give it a 
name, but certain it is the Natasqua was 
alive with it, as some priestess of old with 
the electric current. It was in the air, in 
the wash of the waves, in the dart of the 
swordfishes up into the light, in the lady- 
bugs dotting the swamp-grass like drops of 


NATASQUA. 


1 2 I 


blood, in the pulpy, green, luminous sand- 
flies creeping here and there. But the secret 
was lost or out of sight to-day ; a breathless 
foreboding kept the world silent ; the 
Natasqua was but a dull wash of muddy 
water which, wrapped in a fog, oozed its 
way out into the ocean. 

Dort had gone down in the direction of 
the tents early in the morning, and met 
Miss Vaux on the sands, and after exchang- 
ing a few words with her, had returned to 
the Maid and remained in her all day, coast- 
ing up and down. Inskip, venturing down 
once, found the young fellow silent and 
flushed, as though keeping some strong 
excitement out of sight. 

“Goin’ to the bay, Richard?” 

“ No. Miss Vaux is going with me down 
to the inlet this afternoon,” he said. “ She 
has never seen the sea under a nor’easter at 
spring tide.” 


122 


NATASQUA. 


“ It will be your last sail with her, my 
boy, eh ? ” said the old man, gently. 

Dick gave a queer, discordant laugh, but 
answered nothing. When Inskip was gone, 
he took out a letter to read again for the 
twentieth time. It had been brought to 
him late the night before, and was from 
Mrs. Vaux, marked “immediate” and “pri- 
vate,” and full of underscoring and exclama- 
tion points. 

It began without any address, which Dort 
did not observe, however. There were 
other peculiarities in it, too, which he did 
not notice. 

“ I wish to help you,” she said ; “why, I 
may tell you some day. Not now. But as 
God sees me, there is nothing I would not 
do to give you fortune and happiness. You 
have parted with Romaine, as you think, 
forever. That is all boyish heat and folly; 
put the affair in my hands. She urges you 


NATASQUA. 


123 


to speak openly to her father, which is also 
mere purblind folly. You children are 
always blunt and headlong. A disclosure 
to Major Vaux of your love, and of some 
other matters which must be ripped open at 
the same time, seems to me premature and 
unwise. My plan is this. Ask Romy to go 
with you to-morrow in your boat to the sea 
or the other shore — anywhere. It will be 
exceedingly silly in her to do it, as she 
wishes to draw away from you : but she will 
go. She is a woman and loves you. When 
you are at the other shore, out of reach of 
help, scuttle your boat, overturn, shipwreck 
her ; you are a sailor and can understand 
what I mean, and manage it adroitly ; let 
Romy believe herself in danger, and that 
your strong arm and strong love saved her. 
Weak and frightened, and out of reach 
of home, you can persuade her to do 
what you will. Take her to the nearest 


124 


NATASQUA. 


clergyman, and bring her back as your 
wife. The deed once done, she will 
see the expediency of keeping it a 
secret. We will return to New York; 
you can push your fortune, sure of a legal 
hold upon her whenever you are ready to 
claim her. We will have won the game from 
the major. If she is obstinate, and persists 
in testing her father’s affection for her by a 
confession — the worst can only come to the 
worst. We will stand just where we do 
to-day. He shall know all.” There were 
some half-illegible and wholly incomprehen- 
sible sentences at the close, expressive of her 
wish to serve him, of her regard for him, 
“ different from that of any mother.” Dick 
passed them over with a careless glance, as a 
bit of silly sentiment ; though the poor little 
woman, false and cunning in every other line 
of the letter, had poured her whole, aching 
heart into these. 


NATASQUA. 


125 


Now Dick, to be just, had inherited none 
of his mother’s trickiness. But the savage 
disappointment of the day before, the 
feverish, sleepless night, the day itself, sig- 
nificant of loss and disaster, drove him to an 
unwonted irritability and despair. To give 
her up was to give up life itself. There were 
but a few hours in which to decide his whole 
fortune. On one side was Romy’s plan, to 
risk all on honesty, which to Dort, as to his 
mother, seemed purblind folly — truckling to 
the major first, and afterward long years of 
hopeless waiting. On the other was this 
trick of Mrs. Vaux. It suited Dick’s mood, 
somehow, to capture the girl by force, 
as it were — ha ! that had the ring of the 
old masculine metal line in it ! To under- 
mine this pompous old idiot ! So true 
love and simple worth should always triumph 
over the world and fashion. Dick had 
some such vague notions as these, but the 


126 


NATASQUA . 


motive that drove him most fiercely, cer- 
tainly, was that he loved the girl, and caught 
at the readiest means to possess himself of 
her. 

The first part of Mrs. Vaux’s programme 
proved successful. Romy, who had spent 
the night in bidding lover and love good-by 
forever, and teaching herself that the frag- 
ment of life left to her must be passed in 
tearing the thought of him out of her heart, 
no sooner saw him coming up the beach than 
she promptly sat down to gather pebbles and 
give him time to reach her. 

“ Will you go down in the Maid this 
evening to see the spring tide, Romy ? ” 

“Yes, Richard/’ humbly. 

“ It is the last day. Let us have one hour 
of happiness more to remember.” 

“Yes, Richard.” 

That was all. As Dort, replacing his cap, 
turned off to the beach, the major and Mrs. 


NATASQUA. 


127 


Vaux came up. “ Your boatman coming for 
a last job, my dear? Unprofitable jobs 
enough, so far. I must really think of some 
remuneration for the fellow. Adolph has 
some household utensils, probably, not 
worth expressing home, that we can give 
him.” 

“ I will see to it,” said Mrs. Vaux. 

But the major was looking after Dick 
through his eye-glass. “ The most remark- 
able ! — that young man has a curious like- 
ness to some one, my dear, with whom I am 
familiar. But I can not fix it, for my life. 
The carriage — the poise of the head — the 
very voice ! It is really unaccountable how 
these chance likenesses annoy us when we 
can not fix them.” 

il Had you not better look after the pack- 
ing of the wine ? ” said his wife hastily. 

“ Oh, true, true ! By the way, where is 
Romy going this afternoon ?” 


128 


NATASQUA. 


“To see the spring tide come in, I be- 
lieve." 

“ A capital idea ! It will be a sight worth 
seeing, with this nor’easter gust. I can make 
a letter out of it for the Journal , no doubt. 
Land and sea furnish us with pot-boilers, 
you see, my dear. You shall go with me to 
the beach, Fanny. Not a word — not a 
word. You shall see every thing that is 
worth seeing in the world, my child ; you 
should have every thing worth having in it, 
if Joe Vaux had the money.” 

He put his hand on her head, fondly. 
That was more than Mrs. Vaux could bear. 
She hurried off from him, her conscience 
rasping her sorely, and the tears, with which 
she always paid all her debts to conscience, 
and washed out the accounts, ready in her 
eyes. A sigh heaved the major’s breast as 
he looked after her. “ I wish to the Lord I 
had more money for the little woman. If 


NATASQUA . 


129 


she and the young ones were at the top of 
the tree, Joe Vaux would be satisfied with 
his work.” 

A strange silence fell over sea and land as 
the day passed noon. The leaden, sunless 
plane overhead hung low and motionless ; 
cold mists swept steadily from the sea 
inland ; the Natasqua rose and fell in short, 
sullen throbs ; the only sound that broke 
the gray cold and silence was the melan- 
choly pipe of the fishhawk, coming home 
through the sky from its bootless search 
after prey. 

When the Maid , still jaunty in her yellow 
and red, grated up on the sand, Romy was 
ready to spring on board, her rosy, happy 
face peeping out from her hooded water- 
proof cloak. Mrs. Vaux, in the distance, 
watched Dick, his broad figure made stouter 
by cavalry boots and a heavily-caped over- 


r 3° 


NATASQUA. 


coat, help her up, and then take his seat at 
the stern, and, rudder in hand, steer out 
into the impenetrable gray mist. 

“ He is weighted down with those 
clothes,” she cried. “ What can he do in a 
struggle in the water? And the day looks 
death ! it smells of death.” She ran down 
to the water’s edge. What if they never 
came back out of that mist and silence ? It 
was she who had driven them to it. She 
crept out after the retreating wave until her 
feet sank in the slimy froth and kelp, calling 
shrilly to them ; but the sound struck dead 
against the heavy air, and nothing but the 
echo of her own voice came to her again. 

Wrapping her shawl tighter about her, 
she turned and ran on in the direction in 
which she knew the inlet to lie. Chance 
might bring her to the point where they 
would land. She must see the end of her 
scheme, whether it was death or life ; and, 


NATASQUA. 


131 

besides, she would avoid her husband, whom 
she hoped to trick by it. She would go 
mad if she were forced to parade arm-in-arm 
with him to-day, and listen to his pompous, 
never-ending courtship. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


“This wind is as cold as if it blew out of 
thegrave,” said Dick, looking around gloom- 
ily. “ Nothing but disaster could come on 
such a day.” 

“ It is a little chilly, to be sure. But it’s 
a very comfortable day.” Romy gave a 
contented little gurgle of a laugh, and snug- 
gled closer under her cloak. Dick had 
made her sit by him in the stern, and while 
he guided the rudder with one hand, used 
the other very often to adjust her hood. 
Romy was quite willing that he should 
adjust her hood. Her cheeks grew pinker, 
and her eyes flashed when she felt his awk- 
ward fingers outside of the rough cloth. 


NATASQUA . 


133 


She had never been so babyish or happy 
with him. As for her last nights forebod- 
ings and struggles with duty, she did not 
know what had become of them. Dick 
would talk to her father, or wait and work 
for her in silence. Wait a day — a week — 
years. What did that matter ? Some day 
it would come ! Now wasn’t she beside 
him ? Could she not feel him touch her 
cloak ? The touch of the rough fellow’s 
hand meant love, pure, faithful ; he glanced 
at her, and presto ! with the glance all of her 
life to come was pressed to her lips in one 
draught, warm, bright, tender, maddening 
with its hopes. Dort was anxious and 
moody, but she saw nothing of that, except 
to think how fine the pale, square-jawed 
face was under the broad-brimmed hat ; 
finer than Dick’s usual good-natured visage, 
with the cap set knowingly atop. 

As for Dick, he steered aimlessly up and 


NATASQUA. 


134 

down. The time was creeping fast, but he 
was palsied with doubt. If he took her 
back to the tents she was lost to him ; and 
yet Mrs. Vaux’s scheme now seemed beyond 
measure mean and paltry. Then he looked 
down into her honest blue eyes, and stooped 
to shelter her from the wind. She bent 
unconsciously toward him. 

“ Oh, God ! I can not give her up,” he cried 
bitterly, and steered sharply out toward the 
inlet. There was an old clergyman living 
near the beach who would marry them and 
ask no questions. He would not need to 
use Mrs. Vaux’s cowardly stratagem. Romy 
had never been so womanish, so yielding as 
to-day. Let him have but an hour and he 
could bring her to him by sheer love. 

“ It grows late,” she said, with a startled 
glance at the darkening sky. 

“ Do you want to go home ? ” urging the 
boat toward the inlet. 


NATASQUA. 


135 


She shook her head, with a shy blush and 
laugh. 

“ Do you care to think of the time when 
we shall always sit thus, side by side ? ” Dort 
whispered, stooping nearer to her ; “ when 
you will be my wife, Romy? Do you ever 
think of it ? ” 

The pretty little face under the cloak grew 
redder and brighter. “ Indeed, I think of it 
all the time, Richard,” she said frankly. 
“ It won’t be so very long till then, 
either.” 

“ What do you mean ?” hastily. 

“ Oh, with your talents, you will soon be 
ready to make your way and come for me,” 
with a decisive little nod. “ I’m so glad,” 
clasping her hands earnestly, “ so glad that 
you gave up that scheme promptly, Richard, 
and have done with it. Whenever I think 
of my love for you, or my marrying you, it 
is as if we were both going near to God, and 


136 


NATASQUA. 


I could not go to Him with a trick and a lie 
in my mouth. Could I ?” 

“ Oh, certainly not ! What devil is in 
this boat ?” rising with a purple face. “I 
beg your pardon. But I never knew her 
take her own head so before. I can not steer 
her.” He talked fast to cover his agitation. 
“ She follows my touch generally like a tame 
filly. But to-day one would believe, as the 
fishermen say, that she had an ugly life of 
her own that will have its own way.” 

“ I don’t see any thing malignant in the 
poor Maid ,” looking indifferently up at the 
sail, and wishing Dick would sit down beside 
her again. He did sit down presently, but 
remained gloomily silent. His hand tight- 
ened on the rudder like iron, steering straight 
for the inlet. He would not take her back 
until she was his wife, by fair means or foul, 
let her say what she would. All the strength 
and passion of Dort’s nature were roused for 


NATASQUA. 


137 


the first time in his life. She was a weak 
woman, and in his hold. She would not slip 
out of it. As for this goodyish honesty she 
talked about, it was well enough for women. 
He did not concern himself much with God 
or the devil just now ; it washer he wanted. 
He looked at her, trying to master the magic 
word that should bring her to him, regard- 
less of the vindictive lurches and jibes of the 
boat under his hand. They frightened 
Romy at last. 

“Hadn’t we better go back to shore? 
You have no control of the boat, Richard.” 

“ There’s something about her I don’t 
understand,” with an impatient jerk of the 
rudder. “ I thought I knew her thoroughly. 
No, we will not go back. I am going to 
take you to the inlet.” They had drifted 
within a few feet of the shore, but Dort 
forced the boat out into the broad sheet of 
gray water between them and the sea. 


138 


NATASQUA. 


“ Oh, very well ! ” laughed Romy, wiping 
off the salt mist that wet her face. “You 
won’t take me anywhere that is not safe for 
me, I’m sure.” It was a summer day to her, 
and she was sailing on to the enchanted 
isles. 

Dort was silent. The Maid pushed her 
way headlong through the water as though 
she relished the evil errand. In an hour the 
marshy shore was out of sight, and the sea- 
beach stretched before them, wan and threat- 
ening in the mist. 

“ How lonely it is ! We have not met a 
boat on the river,” she said. 

Dick fastened the rudder, and sat down 
beside her. “ There is not a living being 
within miles of us. Are you afraid ? ” 

She looked quickly at the colorless sky, 
the dim shore, the vast moaning sea stretch- 
ing to the horizon. “I am not afraid with 
you,” she said, a little pale, but smiling. 


NATASQUA. 


139 


He stooped down suddenly, drew the hood 
from her head, and taking it between his 
hands turned her face toward his own, look- 
ing into her eyes. “Are you glad to leave 
the world behind us ? To be alone with me ? 
Do you love me ? ” 

Red heats dyed her face ; he gave her no 
space for answer, but drew her close, 
stroked her eyes with his fingers softly, and 
then for the first time in her life pressed his 
lips to hers. Then he held her still and 
firmly in his arms. “You shall never go 
back from me to the world,” he said quietly. 
“ I intend to land on yonder beach, and in 
an hour you will be my wife.” 

On the instant she was free from him, 
and standing erect and apart. “ Do you 
mean what you say, Richard ? ” 

“Yes. I will not live without you.” 

She shook her head. “You should not 
have cheated me. You will take me back 


NATASQUA. 


140 

now, home.” She hesitated a minute and 
then came directly toward him and sat 
down again gravely. Dort’s eyes blazed on 
her, baffled and fierce with passion. Hers 
met them, blue, cool, smiling. The childish, 
yielding Romy of an hour ago had vanished 
utterly. He held out his hands, came toward 
her, and then turned away. He could not 
touch her. 

“You will take me home, Richard, I am 
sure,” she said quietly. “ You will not make 
me think you a trickster. I know you 
better.” 

“ God knows what I am !” broke out poor 
Dick desperately. If he had known what a 
terrified, chicken-heart was beating for life 
under Romy’s cloak, he would not have been 
so easily worsted. Should he give her up ? 
He stooped to unloose the rudder, when an 
odd gurgle under the boat struck his ear. He 
tore off the flat top of the forecastle, looked 


NATASQUA . 


141 


into it, turned with a quick catching of his 
breath, measuring the distance between the 
boat and the shore. 

“ What is it ? Oh, Richard ! what is 
it?” 

“ I can not take you home if I would, 
Romy,” quietly. “ The Maid has sprung a 
leak. I suppose, ” with a laugh, “she was 
jealous of the woman I loved, and revenges 
herself in this way.” A woman might daunt 
Dort, but danger brought him at a touch 
back to his cool self. He was busy on 
his knees while he spoke, probing the 
leak. 

Miss Vaux, on the contrary, screamed 
with terror: “Take me home, Richard!” 
catching his arms so that he could do noth- 
ing. “ Must we die ? I don’t want to die. 
Take me anywhere, anywhere ! ” 

“ I’ll do what I can,” pulling off his boots 
and coat. “ Don’t hold my arms, my 


142 


NATASQUA. 


darling.” He spoke very gently, for he felt 
that the chance for them was over. The 
boat was unmanageable ; they were drifting 
rapidly out to sea. 




CHAPTER IX. 


The major and Mrs. Vaux were pacing 
about the beach, arm in arm. He had fol- 
lowed and found her, as she feared. 

“ But why should you remain in this very 
unpleasant atmosphere, Fanny ?” The 
major buttoned his oibskin coat tighter 
about his breast. “ Romy, you tell me, 
designed to return early. You have there- 
fore no uneasiness about her ? ” 

“ Oh, certainly not !” clinging to his arm, 
and dragging him up and down the sands, 
while with agonized eyes she tried to pierce 
the blinding mist. 

The major submitted to be dragged, puff- 
ing like a porpoise. “ I’m very glad I met 
you, very glad. But — is it the view you 
admire, my dear ? ” 

“Yes, it is the view.” 


144 


NATASQUA. 


He took out his eye-glasses and thought- 
fully poised them on his nose. “ It might 
be objected to as wet. But I have not that 
keen appreciation of nature that you have. 

I wish I had. A bit of scenery comes in well 
in a letter. Newcastle has that appreciation. 
That is a remarkable boy. Do you know, 
my dear, Newcastle is a better solicitor for 
advertisements to-day than I am ? ” 

“ Impossible, major ! ” 

“ True, ’pon my honor. As for the women 
in business, they dote on him. Such a hand- 
some dog, and so cursedly religious ! Well — ” 
shivering, “ you don’t want to go home ? ” 

“ Not yet. One moment. What is that 
black speck yonder ? ” 

“ A log coming in with the tide. Nature, 
eh?” looking into the vast waste of water 
beyond the stretch of pallid beach ; a 
shadow of what might have been thought- 
fulness in another man coming into his 


NATASQUA. 


J 45 


boastful face. “ Do you know, Fanny, there 
really seems to be something in this ! I 
don’t quite grasp it, but — I’ve always said, 
when I had the boys settled I’d turn my 
attention to — well, religion, you know — and 
I really think I would come to a place like 
this to do it. There’s a meaning — a — I 
suppose the geologists get at it with their 
hammers, or you poets. You are a poet; 
you write verses, eh, my dear ? ” fondly 
regarding her rasped, meager visage, and 
complacently pulling his whiskers. 

She shook her head, her eyes straining on 
the black log that rose and fell, rose and fell 
with the muddy breakers, and slowly came 
nearer shore. 

“ No ? Now I would have suspected it 
strongly. You have that expression, rapt, 
spirituelle — But as for this nature. I 
don’t know what’s in it, I’m sure. How’s a 
man to find out what’s in anything that isn’t 


146 


NATASQUA. 


advertised ? Tut ! tut ! it’s only my joke ; 
smells a little of the shop, eh ? ” 

But Mrs. Vaux dragged him down to the 
water’s edge. “ The log ! the log ! ” she 
cried, hoarsely. 

“ Log ? what ? Merciful God ! It’s a body ! 
Fanny, it’s a body! ” 

The next wave dashed its helpless burden 
so near to the shore that the major, who 
had rushed in headlong, dragged it out. 
“ Romy ! Romy ! ” he sobbed breathless, 
untying her from the mast to which she was 
fastened, tearing off the cloak and placing 
his ear to her breast. He heard a faint 
throb. “ Great God, I thank Thee ! ” he 
said under his breath, holding her tight in 
his arms, as when she was a baby. 

But Mrs. Vaux stood by, staring beyond 
them to the sea. “ It was I that sent him,” 
she said to herself, again and again. “ It 
was I that sent him.” 


NATASQUA. 


*47 

The color came to Miss Vaux’s lips. “ Is 
he dead, father ? ” struggling to her feet. 
“ Is he dead ?” 

“ Who is it ? The young man Dort ? 
Where is he, my child?” 

“ He swam with me to shore, and when 
his strength was gone, tied me to a bit of 
mast that floated past. He is dead now.” 

“ God bless my soul, I hope not ! I’ll see 
what can be done. Swam with you to shore, 
eh? Unbuckle this strap, Fanny,” tearing 
off his coat and purple waistcoat. 

“ You shall not go, father. You shall not ! 
Not even for him,” cried Romy, her arms 
about him. But the major was a man, and 
made short work with women. “ Stand out 
of the way,” as he jerked off his boots and 
socks. “ I see him yonder, not twenty yards. 
I used to swim like a fish. I wouldn’t see a 
dog die, and stand by with my hands in my 
pockets.” Now that he was doing a man’s 


148 


NATASQUA. 


work, the major was altogether simple and 
natural. He plunged into the water, puff- 
ing, striking out with arms and legs valiantly. 
For the fat, short-breathed man to match 
himself against the sea was simply suicide. 
Romy, up to her neck in the water, clung to 
him, but he shook her off, laughing and 
sputtering. She crept back to shore and 
stood with her back to the sea. Mrs. Vaux 
looked after him with dull, vacuous eyes. As 
the water covered him she tried to speak. 

“ Don’t let him go, Romy ! I — I played 
this trick on him to-day.” 

But beyond the furthest breaker the major 
had gallantly made his way, and there the 
gray mist fell and she saw no more. 

While the two women waited on the shore, 
a man’s heavy tread sounded on the beach, 
and old Inskip came out of the fog to them. 
He stood without a word, looking out to 


NA TASQUA. 


M9 


sea. Mrs. Vaux, in all her pain, had time 
to think that he was like an unfeeling log. 

“ There are two men yonder,” he said, 
presently, pointing out into the mist. “ One 
is my boy ; the other — ” 

“ It is my husband.” 

Inskip made ready to help them, when 
the next wave should bring them up. He 
was an old man, and feeble, but he moved 
in the water like a fish. He went out, car- 
rying a rope which he had tied to a spar 
buried in the sand. Romy brought the 
mast to which she had been lashed. “ Can 
you use it ?” she said. 

“ It is from the Maz'd” pushing it aside 
with a shudder. 

In a few moments he came in, dragging 
two bodies up on the sand. Both were as 
still and dead as the log by which they lay. 
The women worked with them as well as he ; 
but what could they do ? Inskip was strong 


NATASQUA. 


* 5 ° 

and skillful. Presently Dort gave signs of 
life. At his first breath Inskip turned his 
muddy face up, and, for the first time since 
Dick was a baby, kissed him on the lips, and 
then the old man was seized with a great 
shuddering, so that he could hardly rub the 
men as he ought. 

Mrs. Vaux held the major’s head on her 
lap, stroking the eyebrows and whiskers, 
which the salt water had washed clear of 
dye and left white. “ He is dead, and I 
loved him so! I loved him so !” she cried. 
She had forgotten to look at her son. 

They worked with him along time. Dick, 
weak as he was, crept over and did what he 
could. He had no thought to spare, even 
for Romy, so intent was he in watching the 
major’s face. “Will he live ?” he said to 
Inskip, apart. “ He was but a short time in 
the water.” 

‘‘No, he wa’n’t but a short time in the 


NATASQUA. 


151 

water, but ther’s a beam or some’at struck 
him in the side; the hurt’s inward. I’m 
afraid ther’s no chance, Richard.” 

“ He gave his life for me, and I was 
tricking him ! Oh, God ! ” 

Inskip nodded gravely and worked on in 
silence. He believed God had dealt this 
blow direct on Dick and his mother. “ It’ll 
make a different man of him for life,” he 
thought. He looked, now and again, over 
the inanimate body at the angry sea, the 
ominous sky and earth. To his uneducated 
and half-Pagan fancy, they were alive and 
vengeful. It was not the poor major, 
bravely dying, on whom their punishment 
had fallen, but the living trickster bending 
over him. For Inskip had stumbled on the 
great truth that he who would truly know 
love or nature must come to them as into 
the presence of God, with bare face and 
clean hands, and lips that would not lie. 


152 


NATASQUA. 


The major breathed at last. But his mind 
was not clear. When his wife and daughter 
bent close to hear, they found he was laugh- 
ing. “ Newcastle,” he said, and afterward 
— “ The public’s a donkey, Langton, and 
we — we lead — ” Then he was silent. 
Presently he opened his eyes. They were 
clear and intelligent. “ I am wet,” he said. 
He took in with a glance his wife’s face, the 
sea, the men kneeling over him. “ Is this 
death ? ” looking quickly at Dort. 

Dick raised him, his face as ghastly as the 
dying man’s. “ I fear it is, sir.” 

“Humph !” He did not speak for a little 
while. “Vaux & Sons — that’s all done — 
done. Fanny!” 

“ I am here.” 

“ If this is so,” with an effort painful to 
see — “put on my gravestone, Joseph Fox. 
Fox. I took the name of Vaux. I thought 
it would be genteeler for the boys and 


NATASQUA. 


153 


Romy. But I’d like to be buried under 
my own.” 

“ Oh, father ! father ! ” 

“Romy” — fumbling at the cold hand in 
his — “you’re a good girl, Romy. It is this 
stitch in my side, that — Fanny ! Don’t 
leave me, Fanny.” 

“ I will not leave you.” 

The major nodded, contented, once or 
twice, and looking steadily into the poor, 
shallow face that had been so dear to him, 
he drew a quick breath or two, and then all 
was still. 

The sun, which had been hidden all day, 
broke out from behind the cloud, and threw 
a sudden illumination over sea and land. 
Its red beams touched the poor dead body, 
as if God had stretched out loving hands 
and claimed something in it as His own. 
Old Inskip, laying it straight upon the sand, 
looked up to the glowing crimson glory and 


154 


NATASQUA. 


the dark blue sea below, to the soft, crisp 
foam upon the beach, to the two figures 
standing apart, lovers for all time. It 
seemed to him as if the world was full of 
God’s truth and love ; as if every meanest 
of His creatures had its share in both. 

“ This, too ! ” he said, laying his trembling 
hand on the poor major’s breast. “ This, 
too.” 


THE END. 


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